Delaware Dedicates Its First Pomeroy Marker 

Dover, Delaware, June 26, 2021 

At a ceremony dedicating the state's first Pomeroy Marker in honor of suffrage leader Mabel Lloyd Ridgely (1872-1962).

The marker was placed at the historic Ridgely house, a short walk from Delawares Old State House. As president of the Delaware Equal Suffrage Association, Mabel Ridgely held strategy meetings in her home and regularly lobbied at the State House on behalf of women's voting rights and for ratification of the 19th Amendment. In 1920, she became the first president of the Delaware League of Women Voters and headed the state Women's Joint Legislative Committee, a bipartisan group advocating for issues related to women's and children's welfare. 

The Honorable Lisa Blunt Rochester, the Delaware at-large representative in the U.S. House, provided inspiring words connecting the struggle for woman suffrage with the continuing effort, 101 years later, to secure the voting rights of all American citizens. Also in attendance were members of the Delaware League of Women Voters, Dover Mayor Robin R. Christiansen, Ridgely descendants, Lucienne Beard of the National Collaborative for Women's History Sites, and an enthusiastic group of supporters from around the state.

In 1982, she was inducted into the Hall of Fame of Delaware Women. In recognition of her efforts to preserve Delaware's history, the research room at the new Public Archives building was named in her honor in 2001. Ridgely family member Ann Baker Horsey, who lives in the house, led off the ceremony with a biography of Mabel Lloyd Ridgely. Then, Ridgely descendants Robert Wolfe Horsey, Josephine Elizabeth Horsey, Merritt Allen, Bradley Allen, and eight-month-old Lloyd Starr Allen, unveiled the marker.

Photo from Delaware State News, June 28, 2021
Article submitted by Anne M. Boylan, Delaware coordinator, National Votes for Women Trail 

Other speakers contributed summaries of the National Votes for Women Trail project and the William G. Pomeroy Foundation's suffrage marker project. In addition, audience members heard a brief overview of the history of the suffrage struggle in Delaware, with special acknowledgment of the work of Wilmington-born Ethel Letitia Cuff, who taught history at Dover's State College for Colored Students (now Delaware State University). As a student at Howard University in 1913, Ethel Cuff was a founding member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority and marched with the Delta Sigma Theta contingent in the March 3, 1913 suffrage procession in Washington, D.C.

Historian Anne Boylan, Ph.D. Pays Tribute

A gathering of Dover citizens, Kent League of Women Voters members, Marsha White of the National Votes for Women Trail, Susan Del Pesco of the Pomeroy Foundation, the Historian Anne Boylan, Ph.D., and descendants of Mabel Lloyd Ridgely joined The Honorable Lisa Blunt Rochester to dedicate the first Pomeroy Historic Marker in Delaware at the Ridgley home across from the Old State House and The Green.

Dr. Boylan gave a brief overview of the suffrage struggle in Delaware, highlighting the contributions by Equal Suffrage Study Club members and Ethel Letitia Cuff, teacher of history at Dover's State College for Colored Students (now Delaware State University). Congresswoman Blunt Rochester connected early suffrage work with the continuing struggle for voting rights in our time in a stirring call to action.

The Pomeroy suffrage marker project will honor additional Delaware women in Lewes, Georgetown, and Wilmington in the coming months.

Photo caption (l-r) Chandra Owens, LWV Delaware, Rep Blunt Rochester, Beverly Jackson, LWV Kent County, Gail Wagner, suffragist.  Credit:  Kathleen Baker