The Douglas County League of Women Voters was founded on September 27, 1921, at Lawrence’s City Hall (then located at Vermont and Seventh streets).

Genevieve Chalkley, an active suffragist since 1904, served as its first president with 35 to 65 members. In 1969, Helen Beal, who came to Lawrence in 1926, recalled that this league disbanded “because it became too partisan.” Given no other archival records on this league’s activities during the 1920s, the reconstituted Lawrence league erroneously dated its permanent founding to May 1931 and marked its 50th year in April 1981.

 In fact, our first league flourished for nearly a decade, according to frequent news reports in the Lawrence Daily Journal-World.

Members held regular meetings with speakers on various “Hot Topics” and sponsored multiple activities with community partners, such as a citizenship school on city planning in 1926 and a county candidates’ forum during the 1928 primary election. Most importantly, the Journal-World reported different reasons for this league’s demise at the new city hall (now Watkins Museum of History).

On March 24, 1930, as the Great Depression intensified, members of the Douglas County league “voted to disband the organization and to go into the civic department of the Woman’s City club [chaired by league president Mary Thomas]. This move was decided upon owing to the numerous organizations represented among the club members and the expense incident to the upkeep of the league for a small number of members.”

No correspondence on this disbanding exists in the National or Kansas league archives. We need to set this historicized record straight with a brief LWVL-DC history from 1921 to 1931.

This has been researched and written by member Jeanne Klein. A recording of her presentation featured on the Hot Topic program of Aug 26, 2021, will be posted here as soon as available.