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ENTRY

Lila Meade Valentine (1865–1921)

SUMMARY

Lila Meade Valentine was a suffragist, education reformer, and public-health

advocate. During her abbreviated life, she played a vital role in creating and
running organizations that improved the health-care and public school systems
of her native city of Richmond. Valentine also became an ardent supporter of
woman suffrage early in the 1900s, cofounding the Equal Suffrage League of
Virginia and serving as an active member of the National American Woman
Suffrage Association. A talented organizer and an eloquent speaker, Valentine
led efforts on behalf of suffrage that came to fruition in 1920, when the
Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratibed, giving
women the right to vote.

Lila Meade Valentine

In This Entry
Early Years
Woman Suffrage
External Links
Map
Timeline
Further Reading

Contributor: Holly Kent

Early Years

L
ila Meade was born in Richmond on February 4, 1865, the daughter of Richard Hardaway Meade and

Kate Fontaine Meade. At the age of twenty-one, she married Benjamin Batchelder Valentine, a

prosperous businessman. The couple’s marriage was a happy one, with Benjamin Valentine actively

supporting his wife’s work on behalf of education and health-care reform, and woman suffrage. The couple had no

children, and Benjamin Valentine died in 1919.

Valentine’s career as a reformer began in 1900.

Appalled by the inequities of Virginia’s education system,

which made it difficult for poor, African American, and

female children to receive high quality instruction,

Valentine, along with several other activists, formed the

Richmond Education Association (REA). The association

was remarkably dynamic and productive, and during

School Interior
Valentine’s tenure as president (1900–1904), the REA

raised funds for a new high school, founded programs

designed to help train kindergarten teachers, called for better training and higher wages for all teachers, and created

initiatives designed to help poor white and African American students receive excellent educations.

While working in Virginia schools, Valentine frequently saw children suffering from treatable illnesses, and she

soon became interested in health-care reform. In 1902, she helped found the Instructive Visiting Nurse Association of

Richmond (IVNA), and became the organization’s president in 1904. The association targeted lower-income residents of

Richmond, seeking to ensure that they had access to basic health-care services. Under Valentine’s leadership, the IVNA

led an initiative to help combat the then-common disease of tuberculosis. This initiative subsequently became a model

for health-care reformers throughout Virginia.

Woman Suffrage
Plagued by ill health and exhausted by a demanding

schedule of speeches and meetings, Valentine reluctantly

stepped down from her various leadership roles in 1904.

On a trip to England, she observed the work of radical

suffragists and returned to the United States eager to

become involved in the American woman suffrage

movement. In 1909, Valentine cofounded the Equal

Suffrage League of Virginia, one of the most influential

southern suffrage organizations. She supposed that an Equal Suffrage League of Virginia Memorabilia

electorate that included women would be more likely to

support education and health-care reform.

Although by no means as controversial as when first proposed by reformers during the nineteenth century, woman

suffrage remained a divisive issue across gender as well as racial lines. This was particularly true in the socially

conservative South, where ideals of southern womanhood still dictated that white women focus on the home and family,

and avoid the “male” realm of politics and government. Valentine and her fellow suffragists defied such expectations,

asserting their right not only to speak about political subjects but also to vote in political contests.

Valentine initially believed that woman suffrage

might be won state by state, with legislatures passing

their own suffrage amendments. She toured Virginia in

1912 and 1913, giving more than a hundred speeches to

government officials and state organizations. Valentine

proved to be so effective a speaker that she was

Woman Suffrage Lectures
subsequently called on to address crowds in New Jersey,

North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and West Virginia on behalf of the National American Woman Suffrage

Association. Still, a suffrage amendment failed in Virginia in 1916, leading Valentine to fix her sights on an amendment

to the U.S. Constitution. The Equal Suffrage League, meanwhile, had joined forces with the National American Woman

Suffrage Association, and over the years it continued to grow. In 1914, it reported 45 local chapters. By 1916, there were

115, including 23 organized in that year alone.

Antisuffrage Viewpoints The Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

granting women the right to vote became law in 1920. In

part, however, because of groups like the Virginia

Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage, the General

Assembly withheld its ratification until 1952. Valentine

registered to vote for the first time from her sick bed but

was too ill to go to the polls to vote. She died on July 14,

1921. Ironically, in 1936, the same General Assembly that

had refused to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment

Making the Polls Attractive to the Anti-Suffragists

nonetheless placed a memorial plaque in the State

Capitol to honor Valentine.

EXTERNAL LINKS

The Library of Virginia: Online Exhibit, Political Life in Virginia

RELATED CONTENT

Categories: Type: Related SOLs:

Education Biography USII.4.e

Health and Medicine

Twentieth Century History (1901–2000)

Women's History

MAP

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TIMELINE

February 4, 1865

Lila Meade Valentine is born in Richmond.

1900

Lila Meade Valentine, appalled by the inequities of Virginia's education system, which make it diQcult for poor,
African American, and female children to receive high quality instruction, forms the Richmond Education Association
along with several other activists, including Mary-Cooke Branch Munford.

1900—1904

Lila Meade Valentine serves as president of the Richmond Education Association (REA).

1902

Lila Meade Valentine helps found the Instructive Visiting Nurse Association of Richmond (IVNA), and she becomes
the organization's president in 1904. The association targets lower-income residents of Richmond, seeking to ensure
that they have access to basic health-care services.

November 27, 1909

A group of women, including Kate Waller Barrett, Kate Langley Bosher, Adèle Clark, Ellen Glasgow, Nora Houston,
Mary Johnston, Lila Meade Valentine, and Sophie Gooding Rose Meredith, found the Equal Suffrage League of
Virginia.

1912

Lila Meade Valentine persuades a group of Richmond businessmen to form the Men's Equal Suffrage League of
Virginia.

1913

In a letter to Lila Meade Valentine, Mary Johnston defends black women and encourages their inclusion in the
suffrage movement.

June 10, 1919

Benjamin Batchelder Valentine, Lila Meade Valentine's husband, dies.

July 14, 1921

Lila Meade Valentine dies.

1936

The same General Assembly that had refused to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment in 1919 nonetheless places a
memorial plaque in the State Capitol to honor Lila Meade Valentine.

FURTHER READING

Graham, Sara Hunter. “Woman Suffrage in Virginia: The Equal Suffrage League and
Pressure-Group Politics, 1909–1920.” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 101
(April 1993): 227–250.

Green, Elna. Southern Strategies: Southern Women and the Woman Suffrage Question.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997.

Harper, Ida Husted, ed. The History of Woman Suffrage. New York: J. J. Little and Ives
Company, 1922.

Tarter, Brent, Marianne E. Julienne, and Barbara C. Batson. The Campaign for Woman
Suffrage in Virginia. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2020.

Taylor, Lloyd C. “Lila Meade Valentine: The FFV as Reformer,” Virginia Magazine of
History and Biography 70 (October 1962): 471–487.

Wheeler, Majorie Spruill. New Women of the New South: The Leaders of the Woman
Suffrage Movement in the Southern States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

CITE THIS ENTRY

APA Citation:

Kent, Holly. Lila Meade Valentine (1865–1921). (2020, December 07). In Encyclopedia Virginia.

https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/valentine-lila-meade-1865-1921.

MLA Citation:

Kent, Holly. "Lila Meade Valentine (1865–1921)" Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, (07 Dec. 2020). Web. 12 Mar. 2024

Last updated: 2021, December 22

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