In a word, fierce. That’s what comes to mind when looking at the faces of the Madison suffragettes in this never-before-published photo. It belongs to Reed Bearden, grandson of the woman in the middle wearing the ratification flag. In 1919, when this photo was taken, her name was still Mina Gerstenbrei. About a year later, she would marry and become a Gundlach.
When millions of men left the country to fight in World War I, women went to work. Here they stand in front of their Madison employer, C.F. Burgess Laboratories, which made batteries used in U.S. Army radio equipment. On the homefront after the war, the women returned their attention to the 70-year battle to win the right to vote.
In 1919, Congress passed the 19th Amendment — but 36 states needed to ratify it. Even though Wisconsin men voted against a state law that would have given women the vote in 1912, couriers literally raced a car to Washington, D.C., to beat Illinois on a technicality and Michigan by mere hours, and Wisconsin became the first state to ratify on the way to enshrining women’s right to vote into the U.S. Constitution.