Julia Addington First Iowa Women Elected to a Public Office

Julia Addington

Iowa in 1869 was prairie grass, muddy boots, the smell of wood smoke, and cornfields so wet you could probably grow rice in them. The Civil War was over, the railroads were slicing across the country like a drunk with a butter knife, and women were—well, not running for office. They were mostly running households, running after children, or running out of patience. But in Mitchell County, one small, unstoppable teacher decided she was done grading papers and ready to grade society.

 Julia Addington wasn’t loud, or rich, or politically connected. She didn’t have a campaign slogan. She probably didn’t even have time for one, because she was busy teaching actual children who probably didn’t wash their hands or understand personal space.

 

She’d been born in New York in 1829, which was so long ago that “light” was still a luxury item. Her family just kept moving west until they ran out of trees—Wisconsin, then northern Iowa—places where the “curriculum” was basically: don’t die, and try to spell your own name before winter sets in.

 

Julia loved learning. She taught everywhere—Cedar Falls, Waterloo, Des Moines, Osage—basically, if there was a building and two kids who could sit still for ten minutes, she was there. One of her students later said, “She never raised her voice, yet no boy ever dared to cross her.” Translation: terrifying in the most polite way possible.

Stephen Sumner Phelps Oquawka Iowa Pioneer

Stephen Sumner Phelps

They came west one by one in those years—traders, drifters, gamblers, men who wanted more room to breathe or to disappear. Stephen Sumner Phelps was one of them. Born in 1805 in Palmyra, New York. He left with a rifle, a pack of trade goods, and a look that said he wasn’t coming back.

The river took him first. Illinois River, 1820s. He built his first post near Starved Rock, on the Illinois River in the 1820s—rough logs and river mud, smoke curling through the pines. The Potawatomi came down in canoes, loaded with furs. Phelps met them with powder, beads, and whiskey that burned all the way down. A frontier editor later wrote, “Trade here is a trembling peace—one wrong word and the hills will answer in fire.”

When the trade thinned, he went north to Galena. Lead country. Holes in the ground, money if you lived long enough to spend it. He and his brother Alexis dug deep, struck ore, then sickness. “He came close to death,” the family said. Lead in the lungs. Lead in the blood. He left the mines crawling and never went back.

He floated south to the Mississippi, following the brown current until the trees thinned and the banks sagged. Yellow Banks, they called it—Oquawka now. A spit of mud and driftwood. He built a store, bought canoes, and started over. The Sauk and Fox came to trade. They called him Wah-wash-e-ne-qua—Hawkeye. The man who sees far.

Carrie Chapman Catt: The Strategist Behind Women's Suffrage

Carrie Chapman Catt in 1916

Carrie Chapman Catt was born in 1859, when the world was full of men explaining things. They were very good at it. They explained women shouldn’t go to college, shouldn’t speak in public, and certainly shouldn’t vote. Carrie, being a curious sort, wanted to know why. Nobody had a suitable answer. That was her first clue that something was off.

 She grew up in Charles City, Iowa, where winter lasts nine months and opinions freeze solid. Her father believed in hard work. Her mother believed in her daughter, though she did it quietly, like a good wife was expected to do. Carrie graduated from Iowa State College, the only woman in her class. Nobody threw a parade. They probably just assumed she’d get married and stop thinking so loudly.

 

She didn’t.

 

She took a job running the Mason City schools. A woman running schools was about as common as a horse running for mayor, but she did it anyway. Test scores went up. The budget balanced. The newspapers said, “She manages men as easily as she teaches children.” Somewhere between the lines, you could hear the men grinding their teeth.

Adeline Morrison Swain Iowa Suffragette

Adeline Morrison Swain

Adeline Swain didn’t ask for permission. She didn’t even notice there was a line she wasn’t supposed to cross. The men of Fort Dodge were too busy puffing cigars and explaining morality to see her coming. Then one day, she walked into the middle of their meeting and rewrote the script.

 Greenback Party convention. 1883. A fine gathering of mustaches and waistcoats, men arguing about gold standards while the world burned outside. Then in walks Adeline Swain — a schoolteacher in a stiff collar — and delivers ten minutes of verbal dynamite about corruption and equality. You could’ve heard a silver dollar drop. By the time the smoke cleared, those same men had nominated her for Superintendent of Public Instruction. The first woman in Iowa ever to get the nod.

 

The local papers choked on their ink. The Fort Dodge Times called her “a curiosity,” which was the polite version of “What the hell was that?” Others said women belonged in the parlor. One reporter called it “petticoat politics.” Adeline used the clippings to light her stove. Nothing like a little hypocrisy to get the fire going.

Albert Baird CumminsThe Most Restless Man in Iowa Politics

Albert Baird Cummins in 1915

Albert Baird Cummins looked like a man who ironed his conscience every morning. Sharp collar, sharper tongue. Born in a Pennsylvania log cabin, he clawed his way to Iowa with a hammer and a law book. A reformer, he said. A Republican, he swore. Somewhere between the two, he lost a few friends and gained a few enemies who looked exactly like him.

 “I am neither radical nor reactionary,” he said. “I am progressive.” That was his favorite trick — claiming middle ground while sawing off both ends of the plank.

 

The Des Moines Register called him “the most restless man in Iowa politics.” They weren’t wrong. Cummins paced like a man waiting for his better angels to catch up. His voice carried that Presbyterian thunder — moral certainty wrapped in prairie dust. “The great evil of our time,” he warned, “is the domination of business in government.” Then he’d smile like a man who knew half the crowd owned stock.

 

He wasn’t the barnstorming type like Teddy Roosevelt, all teeth and testosterone. He was cooler, lawyerly, surgical. Robert La Follette fought with his fists; Cummins fought with commas and tariffs. He talked reform like a judge handing down a sentence. “The law,” he’d say, “isn’t sacred because it’s written down — it’s sacred because it’s right.”

Fort Madison in the Iowa Country

Fort Madison

They came up the river in the summer of 1808, sixty men, led by Lieutenant Alpha Kingsley, a thin, sunburned man with orders that looked clean on paper and smelled like death in the field. The Mississippi rolled brown and heavy beside them. Every splash of an oar felt like a signal. Every treeline whispered, don't stay.

 They built the fort anyway.

 

Logs hacked from the bluffs. Mud and sweat sealing the seams. The air thick with mosquitoes and dread. They called it Fort Madison, named for a president who’d never seen the place. The Sauk and Fox watched from the timberline. Quiet. Patient. 

 

Kingsley said the view was “commanding.” What he meant was exposed. There was a ridge behind the walls, a perfect perch for anyone wanting to shoot down at them. The men knew it. They built anyway, because that’s what soldiers do.

Murder at the Iowa Soldiers' Orphans' Home Davenport

George Foulk ate a piece of chocolate, a moment later he was
on the floor fighting for his life

Sunday, October 1, 1905. The mail came to the Iowa Soldiers’ Orphans’ Home in Davenport. Bills, church bulletins, a few letters, and one small brown-paper parcel tied with string.

 Nobody panicked. Nobody ever does at first. Packages showed up all the time—mostly socks and Bibles. This one had toys. A ball. A picture book. A doll with yellow yarn hair. And a little sack of chocolate creams. Children love chocolate. Adults love to think of children loving chocolate. That’s how you end up with stories like this.

 

After supper, the matron passed them around. George Foulk, age seven, went first. He said the candy tasted bitter. Nobody listened. A minute later, he was rolling on the floor.

 

Somebody screamed. The doctor ran in, hands shaking, smelling of liniment and coffee. The boy’s body arched like a drawn bow. “Strychnine,” the doctor said. 

 

By morning, the boy was gone, and the entire town was chewing on rumors.