Lizzie Crozier French 1851-1926

Lizzie Crozier French 1851-1926. . Knoxville suffragist Lizzie Crozier French was a women's rights activist, social reformer, and organizer. In 1885, she founded the literary society GFWC Ossoli Circle. The same year, French reopened the East Tennessee Female Institute, serving as principal. She wrote the textbook, A Manual of Elocution, for her students. French organized the Women's Educational and Industrial Union in 1889 to improve conditions for working women. A prolific speaker, she was the first woman to address the Knoxville City Council in 1890. French co-founded the Knoxville Writers' Club in 1907. In the fight to ratify the 19th Amendment, she organized the Knoxville Equal Suffrage League in 1910, serving as its first president. French was president of the Tennessee Federation of Women's Clubs from 1910-1912. The first woman to address the Tennessee Bar Association, she delivered an "Address on Women's Rights" in 1912, demanding equal legal status for women. In 1913, French served as vice-president of the state PTA. She was elected president of the Tennessee Equal Suffrage Association,Inc. in 1914. French served as state chair of the National Woman's Party in 1917.When Tennessee women won municipal suffrage in 1919, her Non-Partisan Municipal League registered twice as many women to vote in Knoxville than in any other Southern city. On her voter registration form, French listed her occupation as "suffragist". After the 19th Amendment was ratified by Tennessee in 1920, she became the first woman to seek the office of Knoxville Councilman-at-large in 1923. French was an honorary president of the Tennessee League of Women Voters. Her work led to Knoxville's first kindergarten, first hospital, an industrial school, a rest home for elderly women, juvenile court, and co-education at the University of Tennessee. French was an active member of the Unitarian Church. She raised her son, William W. French, as a widowed mother. French was in Washington, D.C.,to lobby for women's rights and to attend a ceremony in her honor at the National Woman's Party Headquarters when she died in 1926.