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If Susan B. Anthony had a deaf sister, everyone would know that deaf suffragists fought tirelessly for expanding women鈥檚 right to vote, right alongside Anthony herself. Everyone would know deaf suffragists contributed to women鈥檚 emancipation in the United States and Britain and that they lived bold lives. 

As a , including deaf women鈥檚 history,  to illuminate the often hidden history of deaf people and their unique contributions to the world. I have unearthed historical information about deaf women suffragists and assembled it into an  chronicling what is known鈥攕o far鈥攁bout these women and their lives.

Despite harsh, discriminatory conditions, low pay, and lack of recognition, countless deaf women have fought with brilliance and dedication for personal and professional recognition, including for the right to vote.

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Underpaid and Discriminated Against

Annie Jump Cannon was a pioneering astronomer. Born in 1863, she experienced progressive hearing loss starting at a young age.  from Delaware to attend college, she was her class valedictorian when she graduated from Wellesley College, where she excelled in the sciences and mathematics.

In 1896, she was hired as a 鈥渨oman computer鈥� at the Harvard College Observatory, along with another prominent deaf astronomer, .

The work involved looking at photos of stars and calculating their brightness, position, and color. The two were paid between 25 and 50 cents an hour鈥攈alf the rate paid to men doing similar work. 

Nevertheless, Cannon is credited with cataloging 350,000 stars. Building on others鈥� work, Cannon revolutionized and refined a  that is still used today by the International Astronomical Union, though it is named for Harvard, not for her.

Cannon was a member of the , formed in 1916 to advocate for passage of the  to the U.S. Constitution, . Cannon鈥檚 suffragist efforts used her profession as a launchpad, as when she declared that 鈥渋f women can organize the sky, we can organize the vote.鈥� 

She used her prominence to pave the way for women in the sciences, becoming the first woman to receive an honorary degree from Oxford University in 1925, and facing down eugenicists who  the National Academy of Sciences because she was deaf. 

In 1938, after 40 years of service, her role as 鈥溾�� finally earned her a permanent faculty position at Harvard, where she worked until her death three years later. A lunar crater, Cannon, and an asteroid, Cannonia, are named for her.

Two British Women Faced Prison

British deaf suffragist Helen K. Watts, born in 1881, was a militant member of the radical Women鈥檚 Social and Political Union who demonstrated at Parliament in 1909 . After one protest that year, she was arrested and imprisoned鈥攂ut began a 90-hour hunger strike that resulted in her release. As she left, she declared:

鈥淭he Suffragettes have come out of the drawing-room, the study and the debating hall, and the committee rooms of Members of Parliament, to appeal to the real sovereign power of the country鈥攖he people.鈥�

In 1913, she left the more violent group and joined the nonviolent Women鈥檚 Freedom League, also .

One of her sister leaders in the Women鈥檚 Freedom League was British deaf suffragist Kate Harvey. Harvey believed in  until 鈥攚hich resulted in authorities breaking into her home to arrest and imprison her in 1913.

A Silent Voice in Print

Laura Redden Searing, born in 1840, was a gifted American poet, newspaper reporter, and writer鈥攐ften using the male pseudonym Howard Glyndon so her work would be taken more seriously. Deafened by illness as a child, she entered the Missouri School for the Deaf when she was 15 years old and learned sign language, graduating in 1858, writing an address and 鈥渇arewell poem鈥� that was published in the . 

When communicating with people who couldn’t sign, she wrote with a pencil and pad鈥攚ith which she conducted countless interviews over many years as a reporter and writer.

In 1860, Searing became the earliest deaf woman journalist, writing for the St. Louis Republican, whose editors sent her to Washington in September 1861. There, she cultivated friendships with prominent leaders and interviewed Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, soldiers on the battlefield, and President Abraham Lincoln. She also met future Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth, and taught him fingerspelling, a manual alphabet that is used in sign language.

When the Civil War ended in 1865, she traveled to Europe and picked up reading and writing in French, German, Spanish, and Italian. She continued writing news stories for the St. Louis Republican and The New York Times. Returning to the United States in 1870, Searing  for the New York Evening Mail and other newspapers and magazines. Searing had a literary circle of admiring friends who supported her work. She also contributed articles and poems to the popular national , published by the New Jersey School for the Deaf. 

She was a feminist who wrote about women鈥檚 issues such as unequal pay and . She also  for an 1872 campaign for women鈥檚 right to vote with an analogy to the freeing of the enslaved Africans after the Civil War:

鈥� to sign this petition in conformation with that clause of our constitution which recognizes the equal rights of all human beings of lawful age and sound mind without regard to sex, color, or social condition. Having decided that black people do not belong to white ones, why not go a step farther and decide that women do not belong to men unless the proprietorship be recognized as mutual?鈥�

In 1981, Searing was dubbed 鈥溾�� by , the first deaf professor of Deaf Studies at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, because of her pioneering work in the journalism field and her fierce independence as a woman who did not accept restrictions, nor follow expected traditions.

This article was originally published by . It has been published here with permission.