Helen Morris Lewis (December 7, 1852 – August 19, 1933) was an American suffragist based in North Carolina. She was the first woman in North Carolina to seek elected office, when she ran for a municipal office in Asheville in 1899.
Early life Helen Morris Lewis was born in Charleston, South Carolina, one of the ten children of John Williams Lewis and Anna Raven Vander Horst Lewis. She was a descendant of Lewis Morris, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and also of Arnoldus Vander Horst, an eighteenth-century South Carolina governor. During the American Civil War, she fled Charleston for Columbia, South Carolina with her family; her mother died in childbirth during their flight, and the surviving children sought refuge in Aiken. After the war, she attended St. Mary's School.
Career As a young woman, Helen Morris Lewis gave recitals as an elocutionist in various states, to some critical acclaim, with newspapers noting her "undoubted dramatic talent.""Miss Helen Morris Lewis" Newberry Weekly Herald (July 2, 1879): 3. via Newspapers.com"A Grand Success" Star-Democrat (November 22, 1881): 3. via Newspapers.com Her tour was marred when she was the victim of fraud."A Girl Swindled" The Daily Republican (April 17, 1882): 4. via Newspapers.com"How Miss Lewis Was Swindled" New York Times (April 16, 1882): 14. via Newspapers.com
In the 1890s, she and her sister Raven, both unmarried, started a boarding house in Asheville. They also taught music to supplement their income. In 1894, the Lewis sisters gathered several dozen residents of Asheville, men and women, at the mayor's house, and founded North Carolina's first equal suffrage association.William S. Powell, North Carolina Through Four Centuries (University of North Carolina Press 2010): 461. Helen Morris Lewis was elected president of the association. The following year she attended the National American Woman Suffrage Association meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, representing North Carolina,Proceedings, NAWSA annual convention (Atlanta GA, 1895): 79. and returned in 1896 when the meeting was held in Washington, D. C.Proceedings, NAWSA annual convention (Washington DC, 1896): 103. She also spoke to the Senate Committee on Woman Suffrage during that trip."Remarks of Miss Helen Morris Lewis of North Carolina" (January 28, 1896), in Anne Firor Scott and Andrew MacKay Scott, One Half the People: The Fight for Woman Suffrage (University of Illinois Press 1982): 104. "I want to vote because so long as women are prevented from legislation, so long will they be cramped and paralyzed by powers over which they have no control," Lewis said to summarize her motivations for suffrage work.Josephine K. Henry, "The New Woman of the New South" Arena 11(1895): 359.
In 1896, Helen Morris Lewis received five votes for a seat in Congress, despite never having run for the office. She did announce her candidacy in 1899 for Superintendent of Waterworks in Asheville,"Another Vote for a Woman" Asheville Citizen-Times (January 18, 1899): 2. via Newspapers.com making her the first North Carolina woman to seek elective office. She received four votes."Primaries Draw a Large Vote" Asheville Citizen-Times (April 6, 1899): 1. via Newspapers.com By 1900, the suffrage association she founded had disbanded.Anastatia Sims, The Power of Femininity in the New South: Women's Organizations and Politics in North Carolina, 1880-1930 (University of South Carolina Press 1997): 27-28.
Personal life Helen Morris Lewis and her sister left Asheville in 1906, and started an inn near Summerville, South Carolina in 1912.Untitled item, Asheville Citizen-Times (October 29, 1922): 8. via Newspapers.com Helen died at a summer house in Asheville in 1933;"Charleston Items" Bulletin of the Catholic Laymen's Association of Georgia (September 23, 1933): 7. her remains were interred in Charleston at St. Lawrence Catholic Cemetery. She was 80 years old at the time of her death. Her sister Raven Lewis was her heir.
References
External links
Ann Joyner, Helen Morris Lewis: Biography of a Suffragist (M. S. thesis, University of North Carolina at Asheville 1996).