Helen Morris Lewis (December 7, 1852 – August 19, 1933) was an American suffragist based in

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

. She was the first woman in North Carolina to seek elected office, when she ran for a municipal office in Asheville in 1899.

Early life

Helen Morris Lewis was born in

Charleston, South Carolina Charleston is the largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina, the county seat of Charleston County, and the principal city in the Charleston–North Charleston metropolitan area. The city lies just south of the geographical midpoint o ...

, one of the ten children of John Williams Lewis and Anna Raven Vander Horst Lewis. She was a descendant of

Lewis Morris Lewis Morris (April 8, 1726 – January 22, 1798) was an American Founding Father, landowner, and developer from Morrisania, New York, presently part of Bronx County. He signed the U.S. Declaration of Independence as a delegate to the Continen ...

, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and also of

Arnoldus Vander Horst Arnoldus Vanderhorst (; March 21, 1748 – January 29, 1815) was an American military officer and planter. He was a general of the South Carolina militia during the American Revolutionary War and served as the governor of South Carolina fro ...

, an eighteenth-century South Carolina governor. During the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

, she fled Charleston for Columbia, South Carolina with her family; her mother died in childbirth during their flight, and the surviving children sought refuge in Aiken. After the war, she attended St. Mary's School.

Career

As a young woman, Helen Morris Lewis gave recitals as an

elocution Elocution is the study of formal speaking in pronunciation, grammar, style, and tone as well as the idea and practice of effective speech and its forms. It stems from the idea that while communication is symbolic, sounds are final and compelli ...

ist in various states, to some critical acclaim, with newspapers noting her "undoubted dramatic talent." Her tour was marred when she was the victim of fraud. In the 1890s, she and her sister Raven, both unmarried, started a boarding house in Asheville. They also taught music to supplement their income. In 1894, the Lewis sisters gathered several dozen residents of Asheville, men and women, at the mayor's house, and founded North Carolina's first equal suffrage association. Helen Morris Lewis was elected president of the association. The following year she attended the National American Woman Suffrage Association meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, representing North Carolina, and returned in 1896 when the meeting was held in

Washington, D. C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, Na ...

She also spoke to the Senate Committee on Woman Suffrage during that trip. "I want to vote because so long as women are prevented from legislation, so long will they be cramped and paralyzed by powers over which they have no control," Lewis said to summarize her motivations for suffrage work. In 1896, Helen Morris Lewis received five votes for a seat in Congress, despite never having run for the office. She did announce her candidacy in 1899 for Superintendent of Waterworks in Asheville, making her the first North Carolina woman to seek elective office. She received four votes. By 1900, the suffrage association she founded had disbanded.

Personal life

Helen Morris Lewis and her sister left Asheville in 1906, and started an inn near

Summerville, South Carolina Summerville is a town in the U.S. state of South Carolina situated mostly in Dorchester County, with small portions in Berkeley and Charleston counties. It is part of the Charleston-North Charleston-Summerville Metropolitan Statistical Area. Su ...

in 1912. Helen died at a summer house in Asheville in 1933;"Charleston Items"
''Bulletin of the Catholic Laymen's Association of Georgia'' (September 23, 1933): 7. her remains were interred in Charleston at St. Lawrence Catholic Cemetery. She was 80 years old at the time of her death. Her sister Raven Lewis was her heir.

References

External links

* *Ann Joyner
''Helen Morris Lewis: Biography of a Suffragist''
(M. S. thesis, University of North Carolina at Asheville 1996). {{DEFAULTSORT:Lewis, Helen Morris 1852 births 1933 deaths Suffragists from North Carolina People from Asheville, North Carolina People from Charleston, South Carolina Elocutionists