Biographical Sketch of Elizabeth Breathitt Carroll Scott

Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1890–1920

Biography of Elizabeth Breathitt Carroll Scott, 1888-1963

By Brennah Hutchison, Graduate Teaching Assistant, University of Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee.

President of the Memphis TN, Junior Suffrage League, 1912; Vice chairman, Tennessee Equal Suffrage Association, 1914.

Elizabeth Breathitt Carroll was born on July 14, 1888 in Memphis to William Henry Carroll and Mattie Mcray Coward. She married Alex Y. Scott in 1908. The couple had no children. She died on March 21, 1963 and was buried at the Forest Hill Cemetery in Memphis, Tennessee. She was a granddaughter of Tennessee's Governor William Carroll (March 3, 1788 – March 22, 1844).

In 1915, along with Anne Dallas Dudley, Elizabeth spoke to the Tennessee House of Representatives when an amendment to enfranchise women was be considered for the state's constitution. This eventually passed through the Senate and, two years later, was substituted by the presidential suffrage bill.

Elizabeth remained active in the suffrage movement and organized local conventions in order to mobilize and educate Tennessee women on their rights and ways they could succeed in obtaining them. A convention held at the Chisca Hotel on Main Street in Memphis, March 29-30, 1916, included sessions Elizabeth helped to plan that touched on relevant topics such as propaganda, suffrage arguments to rally members, and innovative methods of lobbying legislators. Panels entitled “How to Win in Tennessee” and “Organization for Congressional Work” were led by local activists that included Elizabeth.

Sources:

Tennessee, Birth Records, Ancestry,
https://www.ancestry.com/mediaui-viewer/tree/76976749/person/48493311161/media/c4e99624-1900-4e5b-b73d-5c6323ae9179?_phsrc=Pok359&_phstart=successSource accessed 1 December, 2017

1910 Census, Ancestry,
https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&db=1910USCenIndex&gss=angs-d&new=1&rank=1&msT=1&gsfn=A.Y.&gsfn_x=0&gsln=Scott&gsln_x=0&msbdy=1872&msbdy_x=1&msbdp=5&msbpn__ftp=Mississippi%2c+USA&msbpn=27&msbpn_PInfo=5-%7c0%7c1652393%7c0%7c2%7c0%7c27%7c0%7c0%7c0%7c0%7c0%7c&msrpn__ftp=Memphis%2c+Shelby%2c+Tennessee%2c+USA&msrpn=36307&msrpn_PInfo=8-%7c0%7c1652393%7c0%7c2%7c0%7c45%7c0%7c2690%7c36307%7c0%7c0%7c&_83004003-n_xcl=f&MSAV=1&uidh=ql1&pcat=35&fh=0&h=27505290&recoff=&ml_rpos=1 accessed 22 November, 2017

J.B. Mann Suffrage Collection, Benjamin Hooks Library, Memphis, Tennessee,
https://memphislibrary.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p13039coll1/id/191/

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Gage, Harriot Stanton Blatch, Ida H. Harper, ed., THE HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE, vol. 6 [LINK]

Carol Lynn Yellin, Janann Sherman, and Ilene J. Cornwell, The Perfect 36: Tennessee Delivers Woman Suffrage (Memphis, TN: Iris Press, 1998).

The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture,
https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=205 accessed 1 December, 2017

 

Find A Grave Index, 1600s-Current, Ancestry,
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/54493862 accessed 1 December 2017