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179:, Kansas women had been given the right to vote in some municipal elections one year earlier.) The "Oskaloosa Improvement Ticket" won by a two-to-one margin, making Lowman the first woman in Kansas to serve as mayor with a city council composed entirely of women. Newspapers across the country covered the unusual election of an all-women municipal administration. Lowman was elected only a year after
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When Lowman and her council took office, the city treasury was empty and the city in debt. Lowman and her 5-member council were re-elected after their first year in office, with two members of the council being replaced by other women. After two years in office, Lowman and her council left the city
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Engraving of the all-women city administration of
Oskaloosa, Kansas, 1888, with a view of the city. Clockwise from upper left: Mayor Mary D. Lawson and Councilwomen Carrie Johnson, Sadie E. Balsley, Mittie Josephine Golden, Emma K. Hamilton, and Hanna P.
160:. She became a schoolteacher and in 1866 married a man named George W. Lowman, with whom she had two children. They moved to Kansas and settle in the small town of Oskaloosa, where she became a teacher of recently
175:. In 1888, the women of Oskaloosa, dissatisfied with poor city management, decided to run an entire slate of women for municipal office. (Although American women did not yet have a national
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One source (Martin 1912) lists Lowman as 72 at the time of her death, which if correct would make her birth year 1840 rather than 1842 (Willard 1893).
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A woman of the century: Fourteen hundred-seventy biographical sketches accompanied by portraits of leading
American women in all walks of life
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148:, in the late 1880s. She was the first woman in Kansas to be elected mayor with a city council composed entirely of women.
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Lowman died in 1912 of burns received when her clothing caught fire at a cookstove.
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284:"The Latest Kansas Innovation: A Municipal Government Composed of Women".
144:(January 27, 1842 – June 12, 1912) was a schoolteacher and the mayor of
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Englishwoman's Review of Social and Industrial Questions: 1888
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Collections of the Kansas State
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302:Women in American Politics: History and Milestones
256:. Topeka, KS: State Printing Office, 1912, p. 400.
316:Murray, Janet Horowitz, and Myra Stark, eds.
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288:, vols. 65–67, pp. 149–151 (April 21, 1888).
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167:In 1885, she became the city's deputy
396:19th-century American women educators
356:Deaths from fire in the United States
156:Mary D. McGaha was born on a farm in
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286:Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper
320:, Routledge Library Editions, n.p.
304:. SAGE Publications, 2012, p. 240.
234:. New York: Moulton, 1893, p. 476.
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371:Schoolteachers from Pennsylvania
346:Women mayors of places in Kansas
381:19th-century American educators
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351:People from Oskaloosa, Kansas
191:with a replenished treasury.
230:Willard, Frances Elizabeth.
158:Indiana County, Pennsylvania
83:Indiana County, Pennsylvania
361:Accidental deaths in Kansas
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376:Schoolteachers from Kansas
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35:Mary D. Lowman, ca. 1893
142:Mary D. (McGaha) Lowman
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252:Martin, Geo. W., ed.
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300:Weatherford, Doris.
16:American politician
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181:Susanna M. Salter
173:register of deeds
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68:Personal details
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336:1842 births
171:and deputy
162:emancipated
103:Nationality
330:Categories
198:References
119:Occupation
152:Biography
59:1888–1890
55:In office
45:Mayor of
106:American
137:Morse.
111:Spouse
89:Died
73:Born
183:of
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