An abstract portrait of Eva McCall Hamilton, painted during our first ever Paint and Learn class on July 13, 2024. Paint and Learn classes are held the second Saturday of each month and feature the stories of women, LGBTQ+ people, and advocates for dignity, justice, and peace for the marginalized. Join us for this low-stress opportunity to learn, have fun, and hang out at the AuSable Inclusion Center!
If you’re a fan of farmer’s markets, teachers being paid well, and women’s suffrage, you’ll be a fan of Eva McCall Hamilton. Eva McCall Hamilton, born in 1871, was an educator, an activist, and the first woman to be elected to Michigan’s State Senate.
Eva McCall Hamilton was born in Memphis, MI to English and Scottish parents who ensured she got a good education for a girl in the 19th century. She later graduated from a normal school, which was a post-secondary teacher education institution, and became a school teacher. She married Charles Bert Hamilton, an advertising executive and founder of the Grand Rapids Furniture Association. Like many middle class women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, she used her newfound leisure time to engage in the life of her community and political activism.
She served in a variety of roles in Grand Rapids, but chiefly she was associated with the women’s suffrage movement. She was deeply involved in the on-the-ground effort to advocate for women’s right to vote. In 1910, she took the reins of a horse-drawn float for the Grand Rapids Equal Franchise Club in Grand Rapids’ homecoming parade. At the time, suffrage floats were a rare occurrence, but the suffragists in Grand Rapids had a huge float followed by 75 suffragists in decorated cars. In 1912, she and two other activists personally mailed out approximately 6 tons of written materials advocating for women’s suffrage.
The women’s suffrage movement in Michigan is a prime example of the kind of long-term, gritty effort required to gain and maintain civil rights for marginalized groups. Suffragists lobbied Michigan legislators to vote in favor of a statewide referendum for years… Eva McCall Hamilton personally spent two weeks in 1911 meeting with politicians in Lansing urging them to support a referendum on women’s suffrage. That effort failed in 1911. Unwavering, activists kept working to bring the issue to the voters. Hamilton publicly vowed to canvas the district of every legislator who had come out in favor of the proposal but ultimately voted against it. In 1912, she returned to Lansing to lobby politicians, and that year, they approved a referendum to move forward, giving activists just 8 months to make their case to the all-male voters of Michigan that they should vote in favor of women having the right to vote. That referendum ultimately failed by fewer than 1000 votes. It’s worth considering the substantial anti-suffrage movement, supported by the liquor lobby and tons of misogynistic propaganda lobbing ad hominem attacks on suffragists themselves. This anti-suffragist propaganda often portrayed suffragists as physically unattractive, shrill busybodies who were committed to emasculating men, encouraging people to feel disgust towards those who were advocating for women’s right to vote.
Now, you would think that after this failed referendum that suffragists would have thrown in the towel, but that’s not what they did. They once again lobbied for a referendum in 1913… which also failed. Suffragists continued to tirelessly lobby for women’s right to vote, eventually succeeding in 1918 by demonstrating the important role of women in the war effort during World War I. Michigan voters approved the right for women to vote and to hold any office in the state, two full years before the passage of the nineteenth amendment to the Federal Constitution allowing women the right to vote at the national level. After generations of effort, white women finally had the vote. It would take the better part of the rest of the 20th century for that same right to be extended to people of color and indigenous people at a national scale, and in the last decade, efforts to roll back ballot access have become more and more widespread.
Now, you might think that in the midst of all this, Eva McCall Hamilton’s plate was plenty full, right? Well, while she was wearing out the soles of her shoes advocating for women’s right to vote, she also was lobbying for… farmers. You see, at the turn of the 20th century, farmers weren’t allowed to sell their products directly to consumers, at least not in Grand Rapids. They had to sell their products to retailers. Eva worked to change that, eventually managing to get this city ordinance overturned and to establish the first Farmers Market in Grand Rapids.
In 1920, Eva McCall Hamilton threw her wide-brimmed hat in the ring in the Republican Primary to represent Michigan’s 16th in the State Senate, and won both the primary and general election, ultimately beating four different men to go to Lansing. When she arrived in Lansing, her colleagues were concerned about the high level of media attention she brought, but she stated, “I'm not here to revolutionize the legislature. I only want to cooperate with my fellow members of the Senate and do what I can with the others to give Michigan the best legislature the state ever had.” And she did a lot while she was a State Senator. She served on four different committees and chaired a fifth, mostly focusing on education policy and policies which affected women and children. She sponsored twelve pieces of legislation, seven of which eventually passed, including a 1921 reform to the Michigan Mothers Pension Act, which provided funds to support widowed mothers so that they could support their children rather than those children being relegated to institutions. She also sponsored legislation shifting taxation policies to fund increased public teacher pay. Despite receiving many endorsements for re-election, Hamilton only served one term in the state senate. Her seat would not be occupied by another woman for 98 years. She spent her years after serving in the senate advocating for women’s engagement in civic life.
Eva McCall Hamilton died in 1948, aged 76, of heart failure in Grand Rapids. Her portrait hangs in the Michigan State Senate chamber in Lansing, and she has been honored by the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame. In 1912, then governor Chase Osborn wrote a letter to Eva in which he celebrated her efforts for women’s suffrage, saying "I think no one has done better work for the cause than you." She was tireless in her efforts to improve the lives of women and children in her community and the State of Michigan, leveraging her access to power and privilege through the men in her life and her social position as a middle class white woman to benefit not just folks who were most like her, but also those who were less privileged. The larger story of the women’s suffrage movement in Michigan demonstrates not just how important engagement in local and state politics can be, but also how accessing and protecting civil rights requires the efforts of many people, over time, despite opposition from the powers that be, including personal attacks. So today we remember and honor Eva McCall Hamilton, teacher, activist, and trailblazer for women in Michigan and beyond.
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