Ada James - Remembered in Richland Center

Remembered in Richland Center

Ada James is remembered as Richland Center's and Richland County's most prominent suffragette and for her work with disadvantaged children and women. Ada came to the suffrage movement naturally because her mother, Laura, in 1882 was one of the founders of the Richland Center Woman's Club that worked tirelessly for women's suffrage. Indeed, the Woman's Club may have been the first suffrage organization formed in the state. Two years later the Woman's Club hosted the first regular convention of the Wisconsin Suffrage Association. In 1886, Susan B. Anthony spoke in favor of suffrage in Bailey's Opera House in Richland Center.

In 1892, Ada and several other high school girls formed the Equality Club to assist in the campaign for women's suffrage. Later, in 1911, she was a founding member of the statewide Political Equality League. Ada served as its president for two years, including the crucial state referendum fight of 1912. Ada used unprecedented tactics - hiring a motorboat to distribute leaflets along the Wolf River and employing an airplane to drop brochures on county fair crowds - in this campaign. However, women's suffrage went down in a resounding defeat, by 90,000 votes; a trouncing Ada blamed primarily on the lavish spending by the brewing interests that feared women voters would support temperance.

Late in 1912, after the ill-fated campaign, the Political Equality League and the Wisconsin Suffrage Association merged under the latter's name and Ada became a vice president. Although the WSA continued its work, World War I, which the United States entered in April 1917, created the conditions that compelled President Woodrow Wilson to support women's suffrage. In 1919, Wisconsin became the first state to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Wisconsin won this distinction because Ada's father, State Senator David G. James, traveled to Washington, D.C. via train and hand delivered the documents to just nose out Illinois for this honor. Women voted nationwide for the first time in the presidential election of 1920.

With the suffrage battle finally won, Ada James devoted the remainder of her life to numerous other causes - temperance, pacifism, world peace, and assistance for underprivileged children. She became keenly interested in the latter cause when she began bringing poor children from Chicago to Richland County in the summers. These "sunshine children" caused her to realize that Richland County had its own underprivileged children. During 1920, Ada led a campaign that convinced the Richland County Board to create a Children's Board, the first such organization in the state. She poured her energy and money into this cause. Richland County's shelter for abused women and their children is named Ada James Place / Passages, Inc.