Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1890-1920
Biography of Elizabeth Delia Dixon-Carroll, 1872-1934
By Lauren Madden, student, and Simone Caron, professor
Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Elizabeth Delia Dixon was born in 1872 in Shelby, N.C., to Thomas Dixon, Sr., and Amanda McAfee Dixon. She had two brothers, Clarence Dixon and Thomas Dixon, Jr., and a sister, Addie May Dixon. Elizabeth graduated from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and then earned a medical degree from Women's Medical College in New York City, now known as Columbia University. She married Dr. Norwood G. Carroll in 1900. They both moved to Raleigh and began practice there, and stayed there until their deaths. They had no children, but maintained a steady relationship with their nephew, Herbert Norwood. Dr. Dixon-Carroll died in Raleigh in 1934.
Elizabeth Delia Dixon-Carroll was a significant public figure in North Carolina. She was the only female physician in Raleigh at her time. Various newspapers, such as the Daily Southerner of Tarboro, North Carolina, called her "a woman of strong personality and considerable ability." She served as college physician and as a professor at Meredith College in Raleigh for 35 years. She was a member in several medical associations, including the American Medical Association, the North Carolina Medical Society, and the Raleigh Academy of Medicine. She was also a founding member and the first president of both the Raleigh Women's Club and the North Carolina State Federation of Women's Clubs.
She was an avid supporter of the suffrage movement, and for the development of young girls. In 1917, a bill passed to establish the State Home and Industrial School of Girls and Women, otherwise known as Samarkand Manor, which she ran upon its opening. During her time as the President of the Federation of Women's Clubs in North Carolina, she acknowledged the relationship between suffrage and clubs, raising the awareness of this movement within the organization. She spoke at the Fourth, Fifth, and Thirteenth conventions about her hopes and concerns for the improvement of women's lives in North Carolina. At the Fourth Convention, she served as Chair of Domestic Science, and spoke out for the better treatment of women in households and domestic labor. She presented an address on "Woman in Civics and the Home" at the Fifth Convention, set in Wilmington, NC. She discussed the problems women in the work force faced in her "Women in Professions" speech at the Thirteenth Convention in Statesville, NC. She was also a vocal advocate for a federal suffrage amendment and was a prime speaker at the annual suffrage convention for the State Equal Suffrage League in 1920 in Greensboro, North Carolina. She was one of 12 women who spoke during this convention in regards to women's equal right to vote.
Sources:
Dixon-Carroll, Elizabeth Delia, NCPedia. http://ncpedia.org/biography/dixon-carroll-elizabeth accessed 13 November 2016
Sallie Southall Cotton, History of the North Carolina Federation of Women's Clubs, 1901-1925, (Raleigh, N.C.: Edwards & Broughton, 1925), accessible at http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/cottenss/cottenss.html
Llewxam, "Raleigh Sends Out First Woman Speaker," The Daily Southerner, 23 Sept. 1920, p. 1, accessible at https://www.newspapers.com/clip/869450/dr_delia_dixon_carrollraleigh_sends/