Ida Augusta Craft (December 25, 1860 – September 14, 1947) was an American suffragist known for her participation in
suffrage hikes
The Suffrage Hikes of 1912 to 1914 brought attention to the issue of women's suffrage. Florence Gertrude de Fonblanque organised the first from Edinburgh to London. Within months Rosalie Gardiner Jones had organized the first American one whic ...
.
Early life
Craft was born in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...
, New York in 1860, the daughter of John Craft and Eleanor Voorhies Perlee Craft. Her father was a tailor.
Activism
Craft was an officer of the Bedford Political Equality League in 1897, president of the Kings County Political Equality League and belonged to the Brooklyn chapter of the
Woman Suffrage Party. She attended
National Woman Suffrage Association
The National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) was formed on May 15, 1869, to work for women's suffrage in the United States. Its main leaders were Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. It was created after the women's rights movement spl ...
's 1900 convention in Minneapolis as a delegate.
She campaigned for suffrage in Ohio in 1912.
Known as the "Colonel", because she assisted the "General",
Rosalie Gardiner Jones, Craft took a visible leadership role in the 1912–1914 Suffrage Hikes.
She was arrested during the hike to Boston with
Elisabeth Freeman and Vera Winthrop; they were briefly detained in Hartford, for breaking laws around the use of a vehicle for advertising and the distribution of flyers.
After the suffrage hikes, she campaigned for women's suffrage in Montana, Nevada, Nebraska, Alaska, and Canada,
and was a delegate to the
International Alliance of Women
The International Alliance of Women (IAW; , AIF) is an international non-governmental organization that works to promote women's rights and gender equality. It was historically the main international organization that campaigned for women's suff ...
convention in 1922, when it was held in Rome.
Craft was an active member of the
Young Women's Christian Association
The Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) is a nonprofit organization with a focus on empowerment, leadership, and rights of women, young women, and girls in more than 100 countries.
The World office is currently based in Geneva, Swit ...
(YWCA) and the
Woman's Christian Temperance Union
The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is an international temperance organization. It was among the first organizations of women devoted to social reform with a program that "linked the religious and the secular through concerted and far ...
(WCTU).
She was elected as a Delegate at Large to the Constitutional Convention in New York in 1914, representing the
Prohibition Party
The Prohibition Party (PRO) is a Political parties in the United States, political party in the United States known for its historic opposition to the sale or consumption of alcoholic beverages and as an integral part of the temperance movemen ...
.
Personal life and legacy
Craft inherited a "large sum" when her mother died in 1913.
She died at home in
Pearl River
The Pearl River (, or ) is an extensive river system in southern China. "Pearl River" is often also used as a catch-all for the watersheds of the Pearl tributaries within Guangdong, specifically the Xi ('west'), Bei ('north'), and Dong ( ...
,
Rockland County
Rockland County is the southernmost county on the west side of the Hudson River in the U.S. state of New York. It is part of the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the county's population is 338,329, making it the state's ...
in 1947, at the age of 86.
Her grave is in
Green-Wood Cemetery
Green-Wood Cemetery is a cemetery in the western portion of Brooklyn, New York City. The cemetery is located between South Slope, Brooklyn, South Slope/Greenwood Heights, Brooklyn, Greenwood Heights, Park Slope, Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn, Win ...
in Brooklyn.
In 2021, the Kingsborough Art Museum created a digital exhibition about Craft's activism.
See also
*
List of suffragists and suffragettes
This list of suffragists and suffragettes includes noted individuals active in the worldwide women's suffrage movement who have campaigned or strongly advocated for women's suffrage, the organisations which they formed or joined, and the publi ...
*
List of women's rights activists
Notable women's rights activists are as follows, arranged alphabetically by modern country names and by the names of the persons listed:
Afghanistan
* Amina Azimi – disabled women's rights advocate
* Hasina Jalal – women's empowerment activis ...
*
Timeline of women's suffrage
Women's suffrage – the right of women to vote – has been achieved at various times in countries throughout the world. In many nations, women's suffrage was granted before universal suffrage, in which cases women and men from certain Social ...
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Craft, Ida
1947 deaths
American women's rights activists
American feminists
American suffragists
1860 births
American women activists