The Lost History of Iowa Article

The lost history of Iowa

By Lindsey Cook

Even history buffs don’t know it all. That was the story last Wednesday, when Cheryl Mullenbach a University of Northern Iowa Alumni and independent scholar from Des Moines presented her lecture on lost history to UNI.

The topic of discussion this night was Julia Addington, who according to Mullenbach was the first woman elected to public office in Iowa, and possibly the country.

In 1869, Addington, an Iowa teacher, became the first woman in the nation elected to public office when she was elected to county school superintendent. She held the office of Superintendent of Schools in Mitchell County from 1870-71.

Even Mullenbach says as a historian she didn’t know of Addington until she stumbled across her by accident when she was doing other research. “In 1893 a group of women came together to create a book called the Women’s Columbian Souvenir, it had important events of women in Mitchell county. It was their contribution to the Columbian fair in Chicago.” She said, and it was in this book that Mullenbach first found reference to Addington.

The only thing the reference said was, “Julia C. Addington of Stacyville, Iowa was the first woman elected to an office in the United States,” Mullenbach says she was shocked when she first read this and had to reread it several times.

To put it in historical perspective, Mullenbach pointed it out that this was four years after the civil war, only one year after the Iowa constitution allowed black men the right to vote, and 50 years before women got the right to vote.

Mullenbach said the election of the first woman to office stemmed from a fight that took place from 1855 - 1870 between the towns of Mitchell and Osage over the status of who got the county seat.

“In May of 1869 T.M. Altherton, the publisher of the Mitchell County Press moved the Newspaper from Mitchell to Osage. At the same time Dr. S.A. Cravath and Dr. D.G. Frisbie began publishing The Mitchell County News at Mitchell, both republican papers.” Mullenbach cites this as important because the Mitchell County Press moved before the county seat was ever moved to Osage.

On September 18 the Republican County Convention took place in Osage, where Milton M. Brown was nominated for supervisor. But then Sometime between September 18-23 a group of republicans from Mitchell put forward their own candidates in the Mitchell County News including Julia Addington.

At the time Mullenbach says Addington was a 40 year old educator, who owned land, had taught in Waterloo, Cedar Falls, and Des Moines. She was also serving as Mitchell County School Superintendent having been appointed to finish the term of the man who had been elected to the post.

Mullenbach says she has done more research on Addington’s time in Cedar Falls and Waterloo, but says she has yet to find where she taught.

Mullenbach says needless to say the nomination caused a lot of stir. “People said she was illegible because she was not a white male, and thought the nomination was an insult.”

The Osage newspaper started labeling the splinter group that had nominated her as a group of “renegades,” and “bolters,” calling it a mongrel ticket.

The paper even went so far as to post notices to voters to warn them to carefully examine their ballots, “to see that every name is correct, and that they contain only the regular state and county ticket.”

However Mullenbach says at election time it was a tie with each republican candidate getting 633 votes. To decide who would be the winner, Mullenbach says they drew straws to see who had won, and Addington won.

Mullenbach says the news got as far as New York where Susan B. Anthony published the news in her newspaper The Revolutionary Reports.

“Julia was wary of holding the position, but took it because the people had voted for her,” Mullenbach said. It also helped that the current Attorney General of Iowa Henry O’Connor endorsed her saying, “Women are citizens as much as men.”

With that endorsement, Addington got even more support in her position. Part of this position meant covering 76 schools, including three log school houses. 2,231 students, 122 teachers scattered across the country. Male teachers at the time earned $8.57 per week; where as female teachers earned $5.63 per week. The total budget for the county’s schools was $20,452.07 a year.

Mullenbach explained the job, “a two year term, she examined applicants for teachers certificates, issued certificates to those who qualified. Visited and inspected each school in the county at least twice a year spending at least half a day in each visit.”

She also had to examine plans for new school buildings, hold meetings with the presidents of school districts, made an annual report to the state superintendent. All on a salary of $3 a day.

In her term however Mullenbach described how Julia did by showing her report to the state. 17 new schools were built; she recommended a reduction in teacher turnover, better salaries, saying, “The time is near at hand when teachers will be paid according to the service they are capable of rendering.”

Mullenbach said Addington also recommended that there be more suitable compensation for county superintendents – making the position more attractive to well – qualified professionals. The office at the time was considered a burden to those who would take for little regard was paid to their qualifications.

The position was meant to be a two year one, but Mullenbach said that Addington had to resign early due to ill health. She said the next and last evidence that she existed is her gravestone in Stacyville only saying her birth and death dates of 189 and 1875.

“It will probably be very difficult to prove that she was the first woman ever elected to an office, but she was a force for good and her legacy still remains,” said Mullenbach.

The one message she believes that should come out of Addington’s story is this, “you shouldn’t overlook your home town history; there is a lot of history there.”

In an audience of students and community members people got the message, “I came for Oral Communications class, but this lecture sparked my interest because you don’t hear about local history very often,” said student Jocelyn Strong.

Strong also liked Mullenbach, “She did a really good job, I had no idea anything like this had ever happened.”

Student Christine Mikkola also came for a class, “It was interesting, it is cool that she taught here in Cedar falls and was the first one in the country go get elected.”