Courtesy Perskie Photographies,
Truman Lib.
India Edwards:
Distaff Politician of the Truman Era
BY GEORGIA COOK MORGAN*
"If perticuliar care and attention is not paid to the Laidies
we are determined to foment a Rebelion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation," so wrote Abigail Adams to her husband, March 31, 1776,
while he served as a delegate to the Continental Congress.1 She
wanted the delegates to realize that women could be a viable
political force and that they should be remembered when delegates drafted the American Constitution. Obviously, John Adams
did not consider her plea, and the determined ladies failed to rally
and rebel. Later, as the American frontier advanced westward,
women began to conceive of the idea of political equality. Settling the new territory offered an equal challenge for men and
* Georgia Cook Morgan is co-owner of The Morgan Companies, a marketing
and research firm in Joplin, Missouri. She has the B.A. degree in history from
Missouri Southern State College, Joplin, and the M.A. in history from Southwest
Missouri State University, Springfield.
i L. H. Butterfield, ed., Adams Family Correspondence (Cambridge, 1963),
I, 370.
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