Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1890–1920
Biography of Carrie McCully Patrick, 1869-1957
By Abby Stiver and Morgan Rowden, students of Maggy Carmack, Presbyterian College, Clinton, South Carolina.
Chair, American Citizenship, League of Women Voters.
Caroline “Carrie” McCully was born in Anderson, South Carolina in February of 1869 to Newton Alexander McCully Sr. and Caroline Fretwell McCully. The McCullys were a prominent family in Anderson County, dating back to Carrie's grandfather, Stephen McCully, an Irish immigrant who settled in Whitehall and became one of the wealthiest merchants in Anderson County. He dabbled in the railroad industry and served multiple terms on the city council. Carrie's father followed in his footsteps, both men well known and liked by all. Carrie McCully took after her grandfather and father, becoming a prominent member of her community. She would become a newspaper writer and an active member of both women's groups and political organizations.
McCully's pathway to activism began when she was a child. In 1876, Carrie's eldest brother, Newton A. McCully, later a rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, was to ride in the Red Shirt Brigade in Anderson's Hampton Day parade as a part of Wade Hampton III's South Carolina gubernatorial campaign. As Carrie's mother made her brother's red shirt, Carrie begged to have one too, and the scraps from her brother's shirt were saved to make her one. Her spirits were crushed when she was told that she must watch the parade from the sidelines as girls were not permitted to participate in the event. She later recalled that, though too young to understand the meaning of the Red Shirt parade, her exclusion led her to desire more rights for women, particularly the right to participate in politics.
In February of 1889, Carrie McCully married Lieutenant John Milligan Patrick. She continued to live in Anderson, and had two children, Vina and Jack. Carrie Patrick was a writer for the Anderson Independent newspaper and society editor for the Anderson Daily Mail. She also worked as a desk clerk in the engrossment department of the South Carolina General Assembly.
Carrie McCully Patrick was an active member of several organizations including the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) and the League of Women Voters (LWV). She served as historian for the South Carolina division of the UDC in 1915 and as president of the Anderson Dixie Chapter No. 395. The organization described her as a fine progressive leader and a woman of broad views who well upheld the honor of the Palmetto State.
Carrie Patrick supported woman suffrage through several organizations. In 1915 she read an address by Carrie Chapman Catt at a meeting of the Civic Association in Anderson, South Carolina. In 1920, Carrie Patrick served as chair of American Citizenship for the local chapter of the LWV. As part of the League's voter education campaign for women she offered a course of twelve lessons to women's clubs in South Carolina. As a member of the Democratic Party of South Carolina, she served as an alternate delegate to the Democratic National Convention for Anderson County during in 1924.
Carrie Patrick's involvement in Anderson society earned her respect within the community. She recognized her desire for equal opportunity at a young age and this desire remained with her as the driving force behind her interest in advocating for woman's rights throughout her adult life. Her participation in organizations such as the LWV exhibits her contribution to the women's movement, as well as her personal beliefs about women's rightful status in American society. She died in 1957 and was buried in her lifelong home of Anderson.
Sources:
Carrie McCully Patrick (1869-1957).” Find a Grave Memorial. November 28, 2011. Accessed May 3, 2017. https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=81149790
Brian Scott, Old Silver Brook Obituaries, Volume I: 1866-1899 (Anderson, SC, 2016), p. 61.
“Mrs. Patrick of Anderson is Veteran Red Shirter,” Index-Journal, Greenwood, South Carolina, October 16, 1941, p. 9, Newspapers (1941). Accessed May 3, 2017. https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/69709404/
J. C. Garlington, Men of the Time: Sketches of Living Notables. A Biographical Encyclopedia of Contemporaneous South Carolina Leaders (Garlington Publishing Company SC, 1902), p. 344, accessed May 3, 2017.
J. Wilson Gibbes, “Legislative Manual: Seventy-Second General Assembly of South Carolina.” (Columbia: Clerk of the House of Representatives, 1917)145 and 159. Accessed March 16, 2017 https://archive.org/stream/legislativemanua1917sout/legislativemanua1917sout_djvu.txt
“Delightful Meeting of Civic Association,” The Intelligencer (Anderson, S.C.), 26 June 1915, p. 3.
“Another Chance for Local Women: One More Opportunity to Register, Gaffney Ledger, Gaffney, South Carolina, September 28, 1920. Accessed March 16, 2017. https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/78044049/
Alexander B. White and Roy W. McKinney, “Minutes of the Twentieth Annual Convention: United Daughters of the Confederacy,” (Raleigh: Edwards and Broughton Printing Company, 1914), 85
S. A. Cunningham, “United Daughters of the Confederacy,” Confederate Veteran 23 (1915): 60.
The Political Graveyard. “Anderson County Political Parties.” Accessed 16 March 2017, http://politicalgraveyard.com/geo/SC/AN-parties.htm