When Emeline Burke Eldredge died at eighty years of age in 1934, her obituary listed the many ways the lifelong resident of Portsmouth contributed to her community. She was Superintendent of Schools in an era when that was a rare role for a woman, was a long time board member of the Portsmouth Library Association, and was an active member of St. Paul’s Church and the Ladies Association.
For many years, she was in charge of the Social Studio at Bristol Ferry where, according to her obituary, “young people used to gather for dancing lessons, instruction in wood carving and other work.” The Social Studio, which was founded by Emeline’s friend and neighbor Sarah J. Eddy around 1900, was a popular gathering place for youth in Portsmouth. Although Emeline had no children of her own, she worked with young people at the Social Studio for twenty years or more. A 1913 Newport Mercury article mentions that Emeline directed a group of twenty-two girls called the “Girls Industrial Club” which met at the Social Studio. The girls learned basket-weaving, leatherwork, woodcarving, embroidery and other useful arts.
It’s difficult to imagine that this school superintendent, library supporter, craft teacher, and church lady was a suffrage agitator but newspaper articles lead us to believe that she was an integral part of the Newport County Woman’s Suffrage League. A group of Bristol Ferry area friends and neighbors was (according to Elizabeth Cady Stanton) “among the nerve centers of suffrage activity in Rhode Island.” The members of this group included Emeline Eldridge, Cora Mitchell, Sarah J. Eddy, Julia Ward Howe and her daughters Maud and Florence, Mrs. Oscar Miller, Mrs. Bertram Storrs, and Mrs. Barton Ballou. In Cady’s book, History of Woman Suffrage, she compliments the women because, “All rendered priceless service to what was then an unpopular and unfashionable cause.” It took courage in fashionable Newport to ‘come out’ for woman suffrage, but Emeline fearlessly hosted events held by the Newport County Woman Suffrage League at the Social Studio. Emeline may not have been a nationally recognized figure in the suffrage movement but she was certainly influential locally.
Biography and image provided by Portsmouth Historical Society
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