Laura M. Johns

Laura M. Johns
Laura M. Johns
	Los Angeles County, California, U.S.
Resting place	Gypsum Hill Cemetery, Salina, Kansas, U.S.
Occupation	suffragist, journalist
Language	English
Spouse	James B. Johns (m. 1873)

Laura M. Johns (née, Mitchell; December 18, 1849 – July 22, 1935) was an American suffragist and journalist. She served as president of the Kansas State Suffrage Association six times, and her great work was the arrangement of thirty conventions beginning in Kansas City in February, 1892.^[1] She also served as president of the Kansas Republican Woman's Association,^[2] superintendent of the Kansas Woman's Christian Temperance Union,^[3] and field organizer of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA).^[4] Johns died in 1935.

Early life

Laura Lucretia Mitchell^[3] was born near Lewistown, Pennsylvania, December 18, 1849. Her parents were John Ross Mitchell (1820–1910) and Angeline Ayres Mitchell (1828–1900). She had two brothers, Lloyd C. Mitchell (1848–1918) and William Ross Mitchell (1851–1928). As a child she had a passion for books, was thoughtful beyond her years, and her parents encouraged in their daughter the tendencies which developed her powers to write and speak.^[5]

Career

She was a teacher in Pennsylvania and in Illinois. In her marriage to James B. Johns (1844–1927), which occurred in Lewistown, January 14, 1873, she found a companion who believed in and advocated the industrial, social and political equality of women.^[5]

In 1883, Johns and her husband moved from Illinois to

Lincoln, Kansas, while circulating petitions for municipal suffrage for women, enlisted her active cooperation in the work, which culminated in the passage of the bill granting municipal suffrage to the women of Kansas, in 1887. Johns was residing in Salina when her life-work brought her into public notice in the field in which she championed the cause of woman. A strong woman suffrage organization was formed in Salina, of which Johns was the leading spirit. Columns for the publication of suffrage matter were secured in the newspapers, and Johns took charge of those departments, becoming a writer of note.^[7] The tact and force with which she used those and all other instrumentalities to bring out, cultivate and utilize suffrage sentiment helped to gain great victories for woman suffrage in Kansas and in the nation.^[5]

With the idea of pushing the agitation and of massing the forces to secure municipal suffrage, she arranged for a long series of congressional conventions in Kansas, beginning in

Territory of Arizona in the interest of the recognition of woman's claim to the ballot in the proposed State constitution framed in Phoenix in September, 1891. Recognition of her services came in six elections to the presidency of the State Suffrage Association.^[8]

Her last work consisted of thirty conventions, beginning in Kansas City, Kansas in February, 1892, and held in various important cities of the State. In those conventions, she had as speakers Rev. Anna Howard Shaw, Mrs. Clara H. Hoffman, Florence Balgarnie, and Mary Seymour Howell. As workers and speakers from the ranks in Kansas there were Lucy Browne Johnston, May Belleville Brown, Mrs. Shelby-Boyd, Mrs. Denton and Elizabeth E. Hopkins. Johns was enabled to lift the financial burden, of this undertaking by the generous gift of US$1,000 from Rachel Foster Avery, of Philadelphia. ^[8]

In 1894, at the NAWSA convention, Johns was appointed Chairman of the Kansas Woman Suffrage Amendment Campaign Committee, with power to name the members thereof; that committee was appointed and organized as follows: Johns, chairman; May Belleville Brown, Secretary; Elizabeth E. Hopkins, Treasurer; Alma B. Stryker, Eliza McLallin, Bina A. Ottis, S. A. Thurston, Carrie Lane Chapman, Alice Stone Blackwell, Rachel Foster Avery, Anna L. Diggs, Sallie F. Toler, L. B. Smith, Helen K. Kimber, members.^[9]

Personal life

In 1911, Johns and her husband removed to

Los Angeles County

, California, and was buried at Gypsum Hill Cemetery, Salina, Kansas.

References

^ Logan 1912, p. 558.
^ Gustafson 2001, p. 85.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Gordon 2013, p. 20.
^ Osselaer 2016, p. 33.
^ ^a ^b ^c Willard & Livermore 1893, p. 420.
^ Stanton & Gordon 1997, p. 523.
^ Journalis Publishing Company 1887, p. 25.
^ ^a ^b Willard & Livermore 1893, p. 421.
^ National American Woman Suffrage Association 1894, p. 35.

Attribution

This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Journalis Publishing Company (1887). The Journalist. Vol. 6 (Public domain ed.). Journalis Publishing Company.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Logan, Mrs. John A. (1912). The Part Taken by Women in American History (Public domain ed.). Perry-Nalle publishing Company. p. 558.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: National American Woman Suffrage Association (1894). The Hand Book of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and Proceedings of the ... Annual Convention. Vol. 26–30 (Public domain ed.).
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Willard, Frances Elizabeth; Livermore, Mary Ashton Rice (1893). "Laura M. Johns". A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks of Life (Public domain ed.). Moulton.