Clara Schlee Laddey

Clara Schlee Laddey (April 6, 1856 – September 11, 1932) was a German-born American suffragist and lecturer on women's rights.

Clara Schlee Laddey
A newspaper photo of a middle-aged white woman, wearing a strand of dark beads and a v-necked top. Her hair is arranged in an updo with a crown-like ornament on the top.
Clara Schlee Laddey, from a 1915 newspaper
Born
Clara Schlee

April 6, 1856
Stuttgart
DiedSeptember 11, 1932
Alton, New Hampshire
Occupation(s)Suffragist, pacifist, lecturer

Early life

Clara Schlee was born in Stuttgart, the daughter of Adolf I. Schlee and Pauline Steimie. She studied music in Stuttgart and at a finishing school in Switzerland.[1] At age 16, she attended the first meeting of a women's organization in Germany, and recited a poem at the event.[2]

Career

Laddey was a lecturer on women's rights[3][4] and a member of local women's clubs in New Jersey.[5] She was president of the Civic Club of Arlington from 1905 to 1908,[1] and president of the New Jersey Woman's Suffrage Association from 1908 to 1912.[2][6][7] She attended the National American Woman Suffrage Association's annual meeting in Seattle in 1909, and led the New Jersey contingent in a suffrage parade in New York City in 1912. She made "suffragette cheese" from her own secret recipe, which the New Jersey association sold as a fundraiser at event booths.[8] When she completed her term as president of the New Jersey suffragists, she was succeeded by Lillian Feickert, the association's enrollment chair.[9]

Laddey used her German-language skills to speak to immigrant women in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Pennsylvania about suffrage.[2][10][11] In 1913 Laddey attended the International Women's Suffrage Congress in Budapest. In 1920 she was a founding member of the New Jersey state chapter of the League of Women Voters.[1]

In 1931 and 1932, she was finance chair of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), and in this capacity toured in the western United States, lecturing with Katherine Devereux Blake.[1][12]

Personal life

Schlee married Victor H. G. Laddey in 1876. They had three children, John, Eric, and Paula, before they family moved to the United States in 1888. Paula Laddey became a lawyer and clubwoman in New Jersey. Victor Laddey died in 1929; Clara Schlee Laddey died in 1932, aged 76 years, in Alton, New Hampshire.[13]

References
  1. Perlin, Sandy. "Biographical Sketch of Clara Schlee Laddey". Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1898-1920, Alexander Street. Retrieved 2020-06-22.
  2. "An Earnest Worker". Irvington Gazette. August 20, 1915. p. 4. Retrieved June 21, 2020 – via Hudson River Valley Heritage.
  3. "Woman Suffrage Ably Discussed". The Danville Morning News. 1913-10-25. p. 1. Retrieved 2020-06-22 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. "Met to Forward Equal Suffrage". The Courier-News. 1910-03-22. p. 1. Retrieved 2020-06-22.
  5. "RAINY DAY CLUB PARTY; Short-Skirt Devotees Were Entertained by the Woman's Literary Club of Arlington. WORE THEIR BEST FROCKS There Was Not a Specimen of an Abbreviated Gown Among the Guests, Who Nevertheless Made Many Converts". The New York Times. 1897-12-08. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-06-22.
  6. Leonard, John William (1914). Woman's Who's who of America: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Women of the United States and Canada, 1914-1915. American Commonwealth Company. p. 469.
  7. "State Suffrage Annual Meeting". The Courier-News. 1910-11-01. p. 1. Retrieved 2020-06-22 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. "'America' Not Yet the Land of Liberty". The Central New Jersey Home News. 1912-04-29. p. 2. Retrieved 2020-06-22 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. Levin, Carol Simon, and Delight Wing Dodyk. Reclaiming our Voices: An Overview of New Jersey's Role in the Fight for Woman Suffrage (Garden State Legacy, March 2020).
  10. "Suffrage Speaker Busy in Reading". Reading Times. 1915-05-03. p. 8. Retrieved 2020-06-22 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. "Father Rapp for Votes for Women". The La Crosse Tribune. 1912-09-18. p. 1. Retrieved 2020-06-22 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. "Peace Workers will Talk Here". The Lincoln Star. 1931-06-03. p. 1. Retrieved 2020-06-22 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. "MRS. VICTOR LADDEY: Former Head of New Jersey Peace League and Ardent Suffragist". The New York Times. September 13, 1932. p. 21 – via ProQuest.
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