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Emily Newell Blair

Emily Newell Blair (January 9, 1877 – August 3, 1951) was an American writer, suffragist, feminist, national Democratic Party political leader, and a founder of the League of Women Voters.

Emily Newell Blair

Emily Jane Newell

(1877-01-09)January 9, 1877
Joplin, Missouri

August 3, 1951(1951-08-03) (aged 74)
Alexandria, Virginia

American

Goucher College
University of Missouri

Writer, suffragist, feminist and Democratic Party political leader.

Founder of the League of Women Voters

Democratic

Women's suffrage

Harry Wallace Blair

Newell Blair
Harriet Blair

Biography[edit]

Early life and ancestors[edit]

Emily Jane Newell Blair[1][2][3] was born in Joplin, Jasper County, Missouri, on January 9, 1877, and died August 3, 1951, in Alexandra, Arlington County, Virginia. She was a daughter of James Patton Newell[4][5] and Anna Cynthia Gray.


As a child, Emily was an avid reader, and, from a remarkably young age, a talented writer. She was a plump, assertive child and thought that she was not especially popular with her classmates or teachers. To compensate, she excelled in her schoolwork and was the leader of her siblings at home.[6]


Her father, a native of Franklin, Venango County, Pennsylvania, as a young man, made a fortune in lumber and oil. Unfortunately, he explored for more oil and lost the fortune.[7] He removed to Joplin, Missouri, around 1874 with his lawyer's license. He was an investor in the local lead mine in Joplin. He also served as the county clerk for Joplin. In 1883, he was elected as Jasper County recorder of deeds, and then he moved his family to Carthage, fifteen miles away from Joplin. He had also served in the 30th Iowa Volunteer Infantry as a lieutenant in the Civil War.


Her mother, Anna Cynthia Gray,[4][5] was a daughter of Elisha Burritt Gray[4][8] and Margaretta Rachel McDowell.[5][8] She was a great granddaughter of the Rev. Blackleach Burritt and a descendant of Governor Thomas Welles and Rev. John Lothropp. Her sister, Margaretta Josephine Gray,[9] was married to Henry Seymour Church; they were the parents of Katherine Gray Church,[9][10] who married Theodore Solomons, an explorer and early member of the Sierra Club.


Emily wrote of her mother:

Dowling, Timothy C. Personal Perspectives. World War I Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2005.  1-85109-565-9

ISBN

Fenzi, Jewell, and Dr. Allida Black. Democratic Women: An Oral History of the . Washington, DC: WNDC-Educational Foundation, 2000.

Woman's National Democratic Club

Freeman, Jo. A Room at a Time: How Women Entered Party Politics. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2000.

Gustafson, Melanie, Kristie Miller and Elizabeth I. Perry, eds. We Have Come to Stay: American Women and Political Parties, 1880–1960. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1992.

Jordan, John W. Genealogical and Personal History of the Allegheny Valley, Pennsylvania. New York: Lewis Historical Pub. Company 1913.

Laas, Virginia Jeans Bridging Two Eras: The Autobiography of Emily Newell Blair, 1877–1951. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press 1999

McArthur, Judith. : A Suffragist's Life in Politics New York: Oxford University Press, 2005

Minnie Fisher Cunningham

O'Dea, Suzanne. From Suffrage to the Senate an Encyclopedia of American Women in Politics Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio

. Sketch of Rev. Blackleach Burritt and Related Stratford Families: A Paper Read Before the Fairfield County Historical Society, at Bridgeport, Conn., Friday Evening, Feb 19, 1892. Bridgeport: Fairfield County Historical Society 1892.

Raymond, Marcius Denison

Siemiatkoski, Donna Holt The Descendents of Governor Thomas Welles of Connecticut, 1590–1658, and His Descendants. Baltimore: Gateway Press 1990.