Portia Willis

Portia H. Willis ( 1887 – July 7, 1970) was an American suffragist, pacifist, lecturer, activist and organiser of the early 20th-century.

Biography

Portia Willis, born around 1887, was the second daughter of lawyer, real-estate businessman and Democrat former congressman Benjamin A. Willis and Lillie Evelyn Macauley. She was educated at the Anne Brown School and attended, though did not graduate from, Columbia University and Harvard College.

Willis involved herself in the New York state suffrage movement from about 1910 through to its successful conclusion in 1917, including organising and giving lecture tours throughout the state, dropping leaflets from aeroplanes, and speaking in other states including Massachusetts in 1914, and New Jersey and Washington, D.C., in 1915. Her relatively high profile, the circumstances of her birth into a well known political family, and the nature of newspaper reporting of the day gave rise to frequent press coverage earning her the soubriquet of "The Prettiest Suffragette in New York State". Her name was entered into New York State's suffrage honor roll in 1931. In 1958, she was married to Gerald Purcell-FitzGerald, a musician and linguist.

She died on 7 July 1970.