Emily C. McDougald

Emily Caroline McDougald (born Emily Caroline Fitten; November 11, 1848 – January 13, 1938) was a women's suffrage advocate in Georgia. She became the first president of the Equal Suffrage Party of Georgia (ESPG) in 1914. As president, McDougald worked with the ESPG to raise funds, organize parades, and pass out printed information to educate women and the public on the benefits of allowing women to vote. McDougald also drafted the resolution that the Democratic Party in Georgia passed, allowing white women to vote in the Democratic primaries before women's right to vote in the 19th Amendment was passed and ratified.

Women's suffrage was only part of the social and political activism McDougald participated in during her life. She helped in war relief efforts for both the American Civil War and World War I. After women won the right to vote, McDougald was part of the Georgia suffragists that worked together to form the Georgia chapter of the League of Women Voters in Georgia, an organization that encourages and educates women in voting and is still active today.

Life and death

Emily Caroline Fitten was born in Augusta, Georgia on November 11, 1848, to Colonel and Mrs. John Fitten of Augusta and Atlanta. She was married to William Alexander McDougald and birthed four children (three of her children lived into adulthood). After her husband's death in 1887, she managed the family's land in Columbus, Georgia. While living in Atlanta, McDougald was involved with the women's suffrage movement, other local municipal politics, and war relief efforts.

Emily McDougald died at the age of 89 in Fulton County, Georgia.

McDougald also worked with the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) in Atlanta during World War I. In concern for the young women, she emphasized to the Women's Council of National Defense a need for a protector to be among the young women working in the mills to guide them "away from immorality." She saw them as easy targets for soldiers.

She was appointed chairman of the War Council of the National YWCA for the Atlanta branch.

Equal Suffrage Party of Georgia In 1914, Emily McDougald and Mary Raoul created the Equal Suffrage Party of Georgia to support the suffrage movement outside Atlanta.

The ESPG applied pressure to Georgia lawmakers. In one instance during a hearing on the women's suffrage amendment, McDougald and the ESPG placed a table with their printed materials inside the Georgia State House between the House and Senate chambers to "press the issues more forcibly upon lawmakers." This resolution allowed women to participate in the Democratic white primary prior to the ratification of the 19th Amendment. A few white women voted in their first election in Georgia; however, Black women were threatened with violence and turned away. At the last Equal Suffrage Party meeting, Emily McDougald was given the okay to merge the Georgia branches into the state version of the League of Women Voters.

Emily McDougald and Mrs. S.B.C. Morgan were given honorary president titles for life. The League of Women Voters of Georgia supported many reforms towards the beginning of its inception: child labor laws, the Sheppard-Towner Act of 1912 (funded maternity and childcare), prison system reformation, and home rule (increasing local government power).