Eleanor "Ella" Butler Sanders (1849 – 1905) was an American

suffragist Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to vo ...

, and

socialite A socialite is a person, typically a woman from a wealthy or aristocratic background, who is prominent in high society. A socialite generally spends a significant amount of time attending various fashionable social gatherings, instead of having ...

. She founded the League for Political Education.

Vassar College Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States. The college be ...

has a building named after her.

Biography

She was born with the name Eleanor Rudd Butler, on May 16, 1849. Her parents were Maria E. Miller (1827–1910) and Theron Rudd Butler (1813–1884), an art collector and former President of the Sixth Avenue Railroad Company. She was the great aunt to Eleanor Butler Roosevelt. Eleanor Rudd Butler married Dr. Henry Martin Sanders, a

Baptist Baptists are a Christian denomination, denomination within Protestant Christianity distinguished by baptizing only professing Christian believers (believer's baptism) and doing so by complete Immersion baptism, immersion. Baptist churches ge ...

pastor, and a board of trustees of Vassar College from 1895 until his death in 1921. In 1892, Eleanor Sanders presented a scholarship at a fundraiser for

Hampton University Hampton University is a private, historically black, research university in Hampton, Virginia, United States. Founded in 1868 as Hampton Agricultural and Industrial School, it was established by Black and White leaders of the American Missiona ...

, a school that was primarily serving African American and Native American students at the time. In November 1894, Sanders founded the League for Political Education in her living room on 433 Fifth Avenue in New York City, where she hosted the first group meeting with five other people. The other attendees in the first meeting included Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, Catherine Amor Bennett Abbe (1843–1920), Lucia Gilbert Runkle (1844–1927), Lee Wood Haggin (1856–1934), and Adele Marion Fielde. The League initially fought for passage of the

Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution The Nineteenth Amendment (Amendment XIX) to the United States Constitution prohibits the United States and its U.S. state, states from denying the Suffrage, right to vote to citizens of the United States on the basis of sex, in effect recogni ...

and provided general education on social and political issues. She stayed very active in the leadership of the organization until her death on August 5, 1905. In 1909, her widower, Henry Martin Sanders donated to Vassar College the Sanders Chemical Laboratory, as a dedication to his late wife. Vassar College was the first women's school in the United States to have a full laboratory.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sanders, Eleanor Butler 1849 births 1905 deaths Suffragists from New York (state) American socialites Burials at Green-Wood Cemetery