Much has been said and written by others about Kamala Harris possibly becoming our nation’s first woman president. But, politics and political coverage being what they are — rhat is, a focus on the now and the short-term — we tend to overlook both the future and the past. Little if anything has been said in recent weeks, even as a much-needed moment of reflection to get away from the immediate theater of presidential politics, about the modern role of women in government and the trailblazers who opened up the opportunities now present.
Among those who led the way is Belva Lockwood, someone who should be a household name in Western New York but is not for the most part outside the communities she had called home in her formative years — Royalton and Lockport.
Lockwood was historically significant. She was officially the first woman on a presidential ballot from any party, large or small. She ran for the office of the president in 1884 and 1888, both times via the National Equal Rights Party. In 1884 she received 4,100 votes, a fraction of those received by winner Grover Cleveland — ironically, another candidate with a substantial Western New York background — who garnered 4.87 million votes.
Limited numbers notwithstanding, Lockwood’s performance was a significant step in advancing women. Since Lockwood’s passing in 1917, women have had a long history of holding federal office dating back to that year in the House (when Jeanette Rankin was elected) and 1932 in the Senate (when Hattie Caraway was elected). Today, women make up 29% of the House of Representatives and a quarter of the Senate.
Back when Lockwood ran for president, women were looked at as second-class citizens; they couldn’t even vote. The common sentiment was that they belonged in the home and shouldn’t participate in more manly pursuits like governance and law. The majority of the “gentlemanly” press painted her as a joke when she campaigned, just as they did any other woman who counted herself as a suffragist fighting for women’s civic rights.
Lockwood was incredibly instrumental in changing those disgusting ways in which we viewed and treated women in the public arena. She overcame the negative coverage and showed that she was up to the task of debating and developing a platform, a deep 15-position masterpiece that was arguably more substantial than that of Cleveland or his Republican foe, James Blaine. Had women possessed the right to vote, she would have been a formidable opponent and definitely a game changer (the 1884 election was ridiculously close: Cleveland had 48.5% of the vote while Blaine had 48.02%). The 19th Amendment, guaranteeing the right of woman to vote, wasn’t ratified until 1920.
Outside politics, she was just as impressive.
As a teacher — a career she started at just 14 years of age — she developed new curricula in schools in Lockport, Gainesville, and Owego whereby she expanded the knowledge base afforded young women, exposing them to studies that only men once took.
She also became one of the first female lawyers to practice in the U.S. — something she did for 43 years — and ultimately became the first one allowed to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court. She was a successful lawyer at that: She fought the case of the Eastern Cherokee Indians against the federal government, winning them a settlement of $5 million (which in today’s dollars is $154 million).
Somehow, she managed all this while running boarding houses and tirelessly fighting for women’s rights.
She was an entirely self-made woman. Her achievements were not the result of privilege. Lockwood empowered herself and gave women the hope that they could do the same. In her time she ranked with Susan B. Anthony (who was immortalized on a dollar coin) as one of the most powerful and well-known women in the country.
There have been attempts to highlight her legacy, such as a World War II merchant marine ship in her name, a postage stamp in 1986, and a historical marker that stands in front of her childhood home in Royalton. But modern America — and even modern Western New York — has all but forgotten about who she was and what she did.
It’s time Belva Lockwood got her due, especially when Kamala Harris and Donald Trump seem neck-and-neck in the polls. Not only was she the first woman to appear on a presidential ballot, she was also, as made evident by everything she accomplished and inspired, truly presidential material in the traditional sense of the office — a leader and a doer, someone to believe in and emulate.