Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1890-1920

Biography of Maud Morris Hincks, 1873-1956

By Em Barone, undergraduate student, Central Connecticut State University

Maud Morris was born on January 27, 1873 in Bridgeport, Connecticut to Marshall and Margaret Morris. Records show that she completed up to year four in high school and moved several times but ultimately stayed in the Connecticut area. She married William Thurston Hincks in 1897 and had two children, John and Mary. William Hincks was a relatively wealthy man who worked as a broker for the New York Stock Exchange and was also politically active as a member of the Democratic party. Morris made important contributions to women's suffrage at both town and state levels and helped to organize new women voters after 1920. She spoke at conventions and meetings, sent out campaigners, helped to keep the press interested, established a Bridgeport women's group, and was an active member of the Young Women's Christian Association. In 1920, Morris along with several other activist women hosted a statewide meeting of Democratic women to discuss voting rights.

Maud Morris was also the president for the Connecticut Woman's Suffrage Association between the years of 1911 and 1913. The 1911 convention was held in Bridgeport, CT and showcased the success of the women involved. The event raised almost four-thousand dollars and about five thousand people were now members of the association. At this convention, the previous president stepped down and Maud Morris filled her place, remaining in this position until 1913 when she refused re-election. That year the organization had been successful at collecting names for a suffrage petition that called upon Legislature to make changes. They managed to cover all but one county in the state of Connecticut and received about 18,000 signatures.

In 1934, Connecticut governor Wilbur Cross had a tablet made honoring thirty-one women who were involved in the suffrage movement from 1848-1920 that still hangs in the state capitol building today. Maud Morris Hincks is among the names on the list. She passed away on October 2, 1956 at the age of 83.

Sources:

Bucki, Cecelia. Bridgeport's Socialist New Deal, 1915-36. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006).

Connecticut Suffragettes - Hartford, CT - Civil Rights Memorials on Waymarking.com.Accessed online, April 30, 2017 at http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMQ9BX_Connecticut_Suffragettes_Hartfor%20CT.

HINCKS, Maud Morris, in. Woman's Who's Who of America: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Women of the United States and Canada, 1914-1915, ed. by John William Leonard. (New York, NY: American Commonwealth Company, 1914). pp. 390-91 [LINK]

Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage, and Ida HustedHarper, eds. History of Woman Suffrage 1900-1920. Vol. 6. (New York: National American Woman Suffrage Association, 1922). [LINK]

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