Emiliano Benavides

García Early College High School | Laredo, TX | 10th Grade

Inspirational Family Member
My Cousin

Imagine living in a country where no women have the right to vote, where if you’re a woman you had no right to decide what happened in your country even though you live there. That was the case with many women in the U.S.A before. Now thanks to our Suffragettes, women all around the country have the right to vote and have a voice in many other different decisions the country takes. Certainly, whoever was the first woman to vote must be very proud but what did the first woman from your family feel? Well, let me tell you what mine felt.

To begin with, the first woman in my family to ever vote in the United States is my cousin. Her name is Kenia Benavides. She formerly lived in Laredo, TX but now lives in San Antonio, TX in order to pursue her dream career as an architect.

Let’s back track a little, Kenia was born on January 4th of 1994. She was born and raised in Laredo TX. She had the blessed opportunity to attend school, she was also the first person in my family to have gone to school in the United States making it all more worth voting. She attended Kazen Elementary School then proceed to go to Washington Middle School, then after finishing middle school continued to United High School. Although Kenia got bullied in middle school for being super skinny, weighting roughly 80-90 pounds as a teen, she still met her best friends of life in middle school. She never really had much trouble in middle school academically until high school came around. Kenia’s high school years in United High School weren’t as rough, she wouldn’t get bullied except for those people who would like to hate too much on people. Kenia had a problem in high school, and it was that she was having problems with writing essays. This was a big obstacle for her but nonetheless she went about it and pushed her way through and ended up doing better and better since she would work hard on it. She eventually started to get better and surpass herself. Kenia says and I quote “High school was not hard, but I enjoyed my senior year the most”. Being that students are more socially active during their senior year because of important events such as class pictures, senior year pictures, and prom.”

Now we have reviewed her teenage years, lets hop on to when she becomes an adult. She did end up finishing high school in United High but a bigger issue appeared, she was going to college and with bigger places come bigger responsibilities. She had to deal with a lot of college issues like hard work, due days in assignments, a lot less support from adults. Although she is struggling, she is doing her best to keep up and have great grades in school. The first time she voted was when she was 20 years old. She still lives on today trying to pursue her dream career like I had said before.

In summation, some women take for granted the right that they now have, but it shouldn’t be that way since many other women fought for those rights and eventually got them. Although all women should be proud of voting, the first women to do it in a family should feel the proudest since they possibly started a tradition.

Historical Figure I Admire
Ida Husted Harper

The suffragettes are very honorable women since they are the reason why women have rights till this day and are also able to vote thus giving them a voice in their country. There have been many suffragettes along the course of time. Although she might not be as famous as other suffragettes, she was very well known for being an American author, journalist, columnist, and suffragist. Ida Husted Harper was an all-round recognized suffragette. She did women a great service serving this cause for all women.

Ida Husted Harper was born in Fairfield, Franklin Country, Indiana, IN on the date of February 18, 1851. When she was only 10 years old, she moved to Muncie. She studied in Muncie’s Central High School which was a public school in Indiana, and then in 1868 proceeded to go to Indiana University Bloomington for year, then attended Stanford University. Not a lot of time passed to when Ida withdrew from the university to follow a job as a teacher in Peru, Indiana. Ida got married in 1871 with Thomas Winans Harper a Civil War veteran, not only that but he was also an attorney. After that they moved to Terre Haute for several years, a place in which he was chief counsel for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Fireman. The leader of the union was Eugene V. Debs. Debs and Thomas were great friends and worked in conjugation. While in Terre Haute, Ida Harper was writing and sending her articles secretly for the Terre Haute’s newspaper with a secret identity, she made the newspaper think they were publishing a man. Nonetheless she did end up putting her name on the articles she sent.

For about twelve years or so she had a section in the Terre Haute’s newspaper called “A Woman’s Opinion”. Although she felt accomplished by this, her husband, Thomas Harper, wasn’t as pleased as she was, in fact, he disapproved of this action. From 1884 to 1893 she also wrote for the Brotherhood of Locomotive as an editor. It isn’t until the year 1887 that Ida Harper became part of the suffragettes movement. She became part of it first as a secretary of the Indiana Women’s Suffrage Society. Remember how I told you that her husband didn’t agree with what she was doing? Well, she ended up divorcing her husband in 1890 then became the editor-in-chief in Terre Haute. Although she led the paper to a great success, she left the job three months after and moved to Indianapolis with her daughter Winnifred. Winnifred in 1893 moved to California to attend Stanford University and so did Ida enroll in that same university. Once in California Susan B. Anthony named Ida Harper in charge of the of press relations for the 1896 California woman suffrage campaign working under the NAWSA (National American Women Suffrage Association). Ida Harper also began helping Susan B. Anthony write speeches and articles.

This is the rise of Ida Husted Harper in the suffragette’s organization. She was an essential part of this movement because without her Susan B. Anthony wouldn’t have been able to do speeches and articles that appealed that much to the audience. No doubt that Ms. Harper had a hard journey, but this only goes to show us that not giving up is the key to any success.
 

SOURCES +

What the Project Means to Me

Voting is not a thing you take for granted, many people would love to have the right to have a voice in their own country and unfortunately, they do not have it being for one reason or another. I believe that Kenia taking the initiative to be a part of something greater is awesome, she can now inspire other people to do it for the sake of the country and population. Together people can achieve great things. Kenia really is in inspirational person not only because she confronted school but because she voted too. Many women don’t vote for fear that they might be told off or something by our typical sexist male trying to disempower women, which is not a good thing at all. Women believed that they should be equally as powerful as men and so they became. I’m not only inspired to follow on to her foot steps but also amazed at how much leadership she took upon herself to do such a great thing that to one person seems small but, in a bunch, can become so powerful indeed. It is splendid to know how capable she is and not only her but all women in general. I’m tremendously proud of what she did, and she will become. Women should have the right to speak for themselves and now they can. I am extremely proud of my cousin for making her voice count being in the presidential elections or any other decision the country has to take.

Deadline Extended

There's still time to join Women Leading the Way.
Become a part of our storytelling archive. Enroll your class today.


Join the Project