White, Sue Shelton, 1887-1943

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Sue Shelton White (May 25, 1887 – May 6, 1943), called Miss Sue, was a feminist leader originally from Henderson, Tennessee, who served as a national leader of the women's suffrage movement, member of the Silent Sentinels, editor of The Suffragist.

In 1918, White became chair of the National Woman's Party. With passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution she returned home to help gain Tennessee ratification. In 1920 White returned to Washington, working as administrative secretary to U.S. Senator Kenneth McKeller, while attending Washington College of Law where she earned a law degree in 1923. She became lead counsel for the Social Security Administration.

Sue Shelton White was born on May 25, 1887, in Henderson, Tennessee, the fourth of six children of James Shelton White and Mary Calista (Swain) White. White's father, a lawyer and Methodist minister, died when she was nine and her mother worked to support the family, teaching piano to both white and black children, giving voice lessons, and writing for the local newspaper. When White was 14, her mother died and she went to live with her aunt, Sue White Tarver. When she was sixteen she took a teacher training course at Georgia Robertson Christian College (now Freed Hardman University) and the following year (1904-1905) attended West Tennessee Business College. She started her career as a stenographer and clerk for the Southern Engine and Boiler Works in Jackson, Tennessee, but was discouraged by her employers from learning the business. When her sister, Lucy White, resigned in 1907 as a court reporter for the Tennessee Supreme Court in Jackson, White took the job, which she held until 1918. She also opened her own stenography business.

White joined the woman suffrage movement in 1912. She was originally active in the moderate Tennessee Equal Suffrage Association (an affiliate of the National American Woman Suffrage Association), and was elected recording secretary for that organization in 1913, a position she held for five years. During that time, she honed her public speaking skills, wrote newspaper articles, published convention proceedings, and organized the association's headquarters in Nashville. In 1917 she lobbied for a statewide law that would grant women the right to vote in municipal and presidential elections. In 1918, she helped to reconcile two factions of the Tennessee women's suffrage movement, creating the Tennessee Woman Suffrage Association.

White gradually concluded that Alice Paul and Lucy Burns' more radical National Woman's Party, whose speaking tour through Tennessee by Maud Younger she had helped facilitate, was advocating policies and methods which would be more effective. She joined the NWP in 1918, became chair of the Tennessee chapter, and moved to Washington, D.C., where she edited the organization's newspaper, The Suffragist.

With other members of the NWP, White drew national attention when on February 19, 1919, they held the latest of their Silent Sentinels series of demonstrations in front of the White House and burned a paper effigy of President Woodrow Wilson (which White and Mrs. Gabrielle Harris dropped into the fire). They did this to protest Wilson's lack of energy in pressuring balky Senators of his own party. White, with others, was arrested and jailed. After her release, White and others like her chartered a railroad car they called the "Prison Special," which toured the United States to keep the issue of suffrage before the public.

After Congress passed the 19th Amendment on June 4, 1919, White returned home to help with the ratification effort in Tennessee. By August 1920, the amendment had been ratified by 35 states; to enter the Constitution, the amendment would need to be ratified by one more state. Eight southern states had already defeated the amendment, making Tennessee an important battleground. It was White's job to run the National Woman's Party ratification campaign in Tennessee, working collaboratively with state suffrage leaders and NAWSA to pressure the governor to call a special session to address ratification and to lobby 132 members of the legislature. She established the NWP's headquarters in downtown Nashville, organized field staff, including Anita Pollitzer, Bett Gram, and Catherine Flanagan, and regularly polled legislators. She was credited with convincing Tennessee Speaker of the House Seth Walker to support ratification, but saw that support slip away when Walker decided to lead the opposition to the amendment on the House floor. As support for the amendment waned, White announced she would reveal the names of any delegate who withdrew their support after pledging to ratify the amendment. After much political maneuvering by suffragists and anti-suffragists, Tennessee ratified the 19th Amendment by a single vote on August 18, 1920.

During her time working to pass the 19th Amendment, White was also involved in several other political organizations and reform movements. During World War I, she served on the Tennessee Division of the Women's Committee of the U.S. Council of National Defense. She joined the Southern Sociological Congress to address social issues in the South and she worked to achieve state support for the blind in Tennessee, serving as executive secretary of the Tennessee Commission for the Blind in 1918. She also drafted legislation in Tennessee, including the state's first married woman's property act, a mother's pension law, and an old-age pension act.

From 1920 to 1926, White served as an administrative secretary running the Washington office of Tennessee U.S. Senator Kenneth McKeller.

In 1923, White earned a law degree from Washington College of Law. Three years later, she returned to Jackson as the city's first female attorney and to work for her own law firm, Anderson and White.

In 1928, White worked with the Midwestern division of the Democratic National Committee. At request of Eleanor Roosevelt, White also helped organize a Tennessee Business and Professional Women's League for Alfred E. Smith.

She worked in the 1932 presidential campaign of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and from 1934 (when she moved to Washington, D.C.) held a variety of posts in the New Deal, culminating in her role as principal counsel of the Social Security Administration.

After a long bout with cancer, White died on May 6, 1943, at the Alexandria, Virginia, home she shared with Florence Armstrong, her long-term partner.

Archival Resources
Role Title Holding Repository
referencedIn Somerville and Howorth family papers, 1850-1974 Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America‏
referencedIn Papers of Mary Ware Dennett Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America‏
creatorOf Papers, 1898, 1909-1963 Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America‏
referencedIn Armstrong, Florence A., 1885-1962. Papers, 1901-1961 (inclusive). Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America‏
referencedIn Papers, 1901-1961 Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America‏
referencedIn Papers of Jane Norman Smith, 1913-1953 Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America‏
referencedIn Dewson, Molly, 1874-1962. Papers, 1898-1961, 1921-1961 (bulk) Campbell University, Wiggins Memorial Library
referencedIn Dennett, Mary Ware, 1872-1947. Papers: Series V, 1913-1945 (inclusive). Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America‏
creatorOf White, Sue Shelton, 1887-1943. Papers, 1898-1963 (inclusive), 1909-1963 (bulk). Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America‏
Role Title Holding Repository
Relation Name
associatedWith Anderson, Hu C. person
associatedWith Anderson, Hu C. person
associatedWith Armstrong, Florence A., 1885-1962 person
associatedWith Blair, Emily (Newell), 1877-1951 person
associatedWith Boeckel, Florence (Brewer), 1885- person
associatedWith Business and Profesional Women's Smith League. corporateBody
associatedWith Business and Professional Women's Smith League corporateBody
associatedWith Caraway, Hattie Ophelia (Wyatt), 1878-1950 person
associatedWith Catt, Carrie (Lane) Chapman, 1859-1947 person
associatedWith Democratic National Committee (U.S.) corporateBody
associatedWith Democratic Party (Tenn.) corporateBody
associatedWith Democratic Party (U.S.) corporateBody
associatedWith Dennett, Mary Ware, 1872-1947 person
associatedWith Dewson, Mary (Molly) Williams, 1874-1962 person
associatedWith Douglas, Paul Howard, 1892-1976 person
associatedWith Dr. Florence A. Armstrong, 1885-1962 person
associatedWith Elliott, Harriet Wiseman, 1884-1947 person
associatedWith Howorth, Lucy Somerville, 1895-1997 person
associatedWith Hull, Cordell, 1871-1955 person
associatedWith International Woman Suffrage Alliance corporateBody
associatedWith Jacobs, Pattie (Ruffner), 1875-1935 person
associatedWith Laughlin, Gail, 1868-1952 person
associatedWith McKellar, Kenneth Douglas, 1869-1957 person
associatedWith McLean, John T person
associatedWith McMillin, Benton, 1845-1933 person
associatedWith National American Woman Suffrage Association corporateBody
associatedWith National Emergency Council (U.S.) corporateBody
associatedWith National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs corporateBody
associatedWith National Woman's Party corporateBody
associatedWith Owen, Ruth (Bryan), 1885-1954 person
associatedWith Paul, Alice, 1885-1977 person
associatedWith Reyher, Rebecca (Hourwich), 1897-1987 person
associatedWith Roosevelt, Anna Eleanor (Roosevelt), 1884-1962 person
associatedWith Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 1882-1945 person
associatedWith Ross, Nellie Tayloe, 1876-1977 person
associatedWith Rumsey, Mary (Harriman), 1881-1934 person
associatedWith Schiller, Lucy White. person
associatedWith Schneiderman, Rose, 1882-1972 person
associatedWith Smith, Jane Norman, 1874-1953 person
correspondedWith SOMERVILLE-HOWORTH FAMILY family
associatedWith Southern Women's Jefferson Educational Association corporateBody
associatedWith Swing, Betty Gram, 1893-1969 person
associatedWith Swing, Raymond Gram, 1887-1968 person
associatedWith Tate, Jack Bernard, 1902-1968 person
associatedWith Tennessee Commission for the Blind. corporateBody
associatedWith United States. Agricultural Adjustment Administration corporateBody
associatedWith United States. Civil Service Commission corporateBody
associatedWith United States. Council of National Defense. Woman's Committee corporateBody
associatedWith United States. Council of National Defense. Woman's Committee. corporateBody
associatedWith United States. National Recovery Administration corporateBody
associatedWith United States. Social Security Board corporateBody
associatedWith Vernon, Mabel, 1883-1975 person
associatedWith Walker, Frank Comerford, 1886-1959 person
associatedWith White, Marshall K. person
associatedWith White, Marshall K. person
associatedWith Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924 person
Place Name Admin Code Country
Tennessee TN US
Washington, D. C. DC US
Alexandria VA US
Subject
Suffrage
Blind
Books
Civil service
Consumer protection
Military offenses
Nepotism
Stenographers
Women
Women
Women
Women
Women in the civil service
Women lawyers
Occupation
Attorney
Lawyers
Stenographers
Activity

Person

Birth 1887-05-25

Death 1943-05-06

Female

Americans

English

Information

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