Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1890-1920
Biography of Libbie Luttrell Morrow, 1875-1934
By Megan M. Atkinson, Tennessee Technological University
Libbie Luttrell Morrow was born in Nashville, Tenn. on September 20, 1875. She was one of nine children born to Civil War Confederate veteran Dr. William Morrow (1839-1910) and Elizabeth Luttrell Morrow (1842-1911). Morrow graduated from Ward Seminary and the Belmont College for Young Women and took graduate studies in English at Vanderbilt University. She died on December 30, 1934 at her sister's home in Nashville and is buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery. She never married.
Morrow was a writer and editor for newspapers serving for over 30 years with the Nashville Banner. She held numerous positions there including editor of the Women's Department, the society editor, the editor of the school page, and the literary editor. She also covered women's civic and professional activities in a Nashville Banner newspaper section she created.
Morrow was a charter member of the Nashville Equal Suffrage League beginning at their second meeting in 1911. She was the chairman of speaking arrangements for the Nashville Equal Suffrage League banquet for the sixth district in 1916. She assisted in securing support for suffrage from the Tennessee Women's Press and Authors' Club in 1916 through her position as an officer for the club. The Tennessee Women's Press and Authors' Club was a professional women writers club and included such members as writers Clara Cox Epperson, Maria Thompson Daviess and Rutledge Smith. She was a charter member of the club and was elected honorary president for life.
She served as director of the International League of Press Clubs and the chairperson of numerous committees of the Tennessee Federation of Women's Clubs, which endorsed the Nineteenth Amendment in 1916. She was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Centennial Club, the Query Club (a literary club), Nashville Golf and Country Club, Women's Historical Association, the Macdowell Club, and the Young Women's Christian Association. She was also part of the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Ladies Hermitage Association, the National Society of Colonial Dames, and the Daughters of the Confederacy, Nashville Chapter No. 1.
She assisted with World War I relief work as a member of the Query Club and the Tennessee Women's Club. She was part of the Packing Committee of the Surgical Dressings Department for the Red Cross, and she performed publicity work throughout the war.
Sources:
Gilmore, Rose Long. Davidson County Women in the World War, 1914-1919. Nashville: Foster and Parkes, 1923. Accessed from https://archive.org/details/davidsoncountywo00gilm
Leonard, John W. Woman's Who's Who of America: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Women of the United States and Canada, 1914-1915 [LINK].
Morrow, Libbie Luttrell. Maria Thompson Davies, The Book News Monthly, Vol. 32, 223-27. Accessed from https://books.google.com/books?id=mhVGAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA223#v=onepage&q&f=false
Record Group 935 Alumni Relations, Box 2667, File 61 "Morrow, Libbie Luttrell." From Vanderbilt University Archives, Nashville, Tenn.
Simpson, John A. Edith D. Pope and Her Nashville Friends: Guardians of the Lost Cause in the Confederate Veteran. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2003.
"Suffragists are Active in the Sixth District: Banquet and Car Party Will be an Important Affair," The Tennessean, November 12, 1916: 3.
Taylor, A. Elizabeth. The Woman Suffrage Movement in Tennessee. New York: Bookman Associates, 1957.
"Tennessee Death Records, 1914-1963," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-DR93-7TD?cc=1417505&wc=34D3-6TL%3A1580583001 : 1 April 2015), 004184427 > image 2200 of 2519; State Library and Archives, Nashville.
"United States Census, 1880," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GYBP-9QS?cc=1417683&wc=QZ24-PD9%3A1589414125%2C1589411183%2C1589396057%2C1589394990 : 24 December 2015), Tennessee > Davidson > Nashville > ED 45 > image 29 of 42; citing NARA microfilm publication T9 (Washington, D. C. : National Archives and Records Administration, n. d. ).
"United States Census, 1900," database with images, FamilySearch, (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9. 1. 1/MS8H-Y6K : accessed 30 August 2017), Libbie Morrow in household of William Morrow, Civil District 10, Davidson, Tennessee, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 125, sheet 21A, family 379, NARA microfilm publication T623 (Washington, D. C. : National Archives and Records Administration, 1972. ); FHL microfilm 1,241,566. Retrieved https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/9WCD-HHZ/details
Vanderbilt University Alumni Directory, 365. 1923. From Vanderbilt University Special Collections and University Archives, Nashville, Tenn
Yellin, Carol Lynn and Janann Sherman. The Perfect 36: Tennessee Delivers Woman Suffrage, Memphis: Vote 70 Press, Inc: 2016.