AUGUSTA — The Kennebec Historical Society’s August public presentation “Florence Brooks Whitehouse and Maine’s Fight for Woman Suffrage” will begin at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 17, at Augusta City Center, 16 Cony St.​

Brooks Whitehouse was a Maine suffrage leader from 1914 to 1920. Her support of “radical” tactics, such as picketing President Wilson, earned condemnation from her more conservative suffrage peers in Maine.

"Voting Down the Rose: Florence Brooks Whitehouse and Maine's Fight for Woman Suffrage," by Anne Gass. Contributed photo

Florence Books Whitehouse Contributed photo

As a result, she was left out of suffrage histories, although the record plainly shows that she did more than almost anyone in the closing years of the campaign to bring woman suffrage to the state. Through a statewide suffrage referendum, WWI, the 1918 influenza pandemic, and the political machinations of men of both major political parties, Florence and her peers fought for women’s right to vote and to have equality of opportunity with men, according to a news release from the society.

Anne Gass, the August speaker and great-granddaughter of Whitehouse, has written “Voting Down the Rose: Florence Brooks Whitehouse and Maine’s Fight for Woman Suffrage,” which is a lively account of Brooks Whitehouse’s suffrage activities during the critical final years of the campaign.

Due to the wealth of correspondence, interviews and other historical documents Gass found in her research, Brooks Whitehouse is often able to speak for herself in the pages.

For more information, call 622-7718.

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