Annie Nowlin Savery

Annie Nowlin Savery (born Annie Nowlin, 1831, London – April 14, 1891, New York City) was an American suffragist and philanthropist based in Des Moines, Iowa. She is known as a pioneer feminist and activist for woman suffrage. She began taking part in the woman suffrage movement in the 1860s, and became a leader in the county and state, speaking widely and helping establish organizations to support it.

After a bill to amend the state constitution for woman suffrage was defeated in 1872, Savery worked on other civic interests. She donated to the city public library, and helped found the first public hospital in the city. In 1875 Savery and another woman became the first two women graduates of the University of Iowa College of Law, where she studied the rights of married women. She passed the bar and was licensed to appear before Supreme Courts. Savery was posthumously inducted into the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame in 1997.

Early life Annie Nowlin was born in London in 1831 and immigrated as an infant with her family to the United States, where they settled in New York. As a young woman, she married James C. Savery, a young businessman and real estate speculator born November 30, 1824, in Massachusetts. They married in Saratoga Springs, New York, on January 20, 1852.

They moved to Des Moines, Iowa, in April 1864, then a town of 1500. They bought the log Marvin House for $3,000, and adapted it as a hotel, which she ran for a period. They had a house built on Grand Avenue, where they later did much entertaining.

Meanwhile, her husband built a modern hotel with partners, which opened in 1862 as the Savery Hotel.

During the 1870s, she was on the executive committee of the National Woman Suffrage Association. Savery worked closely with leaders such as Lucy Stone, Isabella Beecher Hooker, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony. The bees were kept on the Savery property on Grand. was the main speaker at the funeral, praising her intellectual pursuits and capacity. Her husband died August 27, 1905, and was also buried in the family mausoleum at Woodland Cemetery.

Legacy and honors In 1997, Savery was posthumously inducted into the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame.