Anna Whitehead Bodeker

Anna Whitehead Bodeker (July 27, 1826 – October 26, 1904) was an American suffragist who led the earliest attempt to organize for women's suffrage in the state of Virginia. Bodeker brought national leaders of the women's suffrage movement to Richmond, Virginia to speak; published newspaper articles to draw attention and supporters to the cause; and helped found the Virginia State Woman Suffrage Association in 1870, the first suffrage association in the state.

Early life Anna Whitehead was born July 27, 1826, in Midland Park, New Jersey, to English immigrants Jesse and Sophia Whitehead. After the evening's "impassioned discussion", Bodeker was ready to establish a women's suffrage organization in Richmond. With the help of the NWSA, Bodeker and the VSWSA arranged for nationally known suffragists like Susan B. Anthony, Lillie Devereux Blake, Isabella Beecher Hooker, and Josephine Griffing to come to Richmond and speak about suffrage. The petition was sent to the Committee for Courts of Justice, but it was ignored by legislators. Bodeker stopped her advocacy for women's suffrage after 1872, and the Virginia State Woman Suffrage Association faded from the suffrage movement soon after. They had three daughters; the first died in infancy. The family lived in Richmond's Church Hill neighborhood, purchasing a two-and-a-half-story house there in 1862. By 1872, she believed she was a powerful medium. Disturbed by Bodeker's unorthodox views and increasingly erratic behavior, her family admitted her against her will to the Western Lunatic Asylum (now Western State Hospital) in Staunton, Virginia on September 19, 1873. She was released on October 20, 1874, and returned to Richmond. Here name is featured on the Wall of Honor on the Virginia Women's Monument, located in the Capitol Square in Richmond.