Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1890-1920
Biography of Sallie Moss Lindsay White, 1869-1950
By Sarah Price, Museum Registrar, Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas
Auditor, Kansas Equal Suffrage Association; recording secretary, League of Women Voters of Kansas, vice-president, League of Women Voters of Kansas
Sallie Moss Lindsay was born December 3, 1869 in Nicholasville, Kentucky to Joseph Moss Lindsay and Frances (Fannie) Batchelder. Her father was one of “Morgan's Raiders” during the Civil War, the famed Confederate cavalry unit under the command of General John Hunt Morgan. Sallie moved with her family to Atchison, Kansas and then to Kansas City, Kansas when she was eight years old. At 16, she became a teacher in the Kansas City school system. She married William Allen White on April 17, 1893 in Kansas City. In 1895, she and Mr. White purchased the Emporia Gazette newspaper from W. Y. Morgan and moved to Emporia, Kansas. They had two children, William Lindsay White (1900-1973), and Mary Katherine White (1904-1920).
Sallie White was a partner with her husband in running the Emporia Gazette and in his political pursuits as he emerged as a leader of the Progressive movement. She was also a member of the Kansas Equal Suffrage Association. In 1911, the association held its annual meeting in Representative Hall in Topeka, Kansas. Officers were selected at this meeting and Sallie White was elected as the organization's auditor. She was also elected auditor for 1912-1913. In late 1912, Kansas voters approved an Equal Suffrage Amendment to the state constitution.
In June 1919, Mrs. White was elected as recording secretary to the League of Women Voters of Kansas which replaced the Kansas State Equal Suffrage Association. In October 1919, she became the second vice-president of the league when the previous president's health declined and the group had to reorganize its officers. One of the first goals of the League was the establishment of “citizenship schools” for women throughout Kansas. Some of the main objects of these schools were the education of women in society and politics. Topics considered by the group were American citizenship, protection of women in industry, child welfare, improvement of election laws and methods, social hygiene, unification of laws concerning civil status of women, and food supply and demand. The Whites hosted many social and political figures in their homes at Emporia and in Colorado, including Jane Addams, founder of Hull House, and US President Theodore Roosevelt.
In 1949, White suffered a broken hip and never fully recovered. She died the next year in Emporia, Kansas at the age of 81.
Sources:
Caldwell, Martha B. “The Woman Suffrage Campaign of 1912,” The Kansas Historical Quarterly, August 1943 (Vol. 12, No. 3), pages 300 to 326, transcribed by lhn; digitized with permission of the Kansas State Historical https://www.kshs.org/p/the-woman-suffrage-campaign-of-1912/12944, accessed 25 May 2018
Find A Grave, database and images (http://www.findagrave.com: accessed 11 June 2018), memorial page for Sallie Moss Lindsay White (3 December 1869 – 19 December 1950), Find a Grave Memorial no. 30704443, citing Maplewood Memorial Lawn Cemetery, Emporia, Lyon County, Kansas, USA; Maintained by Find A Grave (contributor 8).
Kansas Historical Society, State Archives & Library, Kansapedia, Sallie Lindsay White, 2012, modified 2016. https://www.kshs.org/p/woman-suffrage-history-collection-1867-1891/13809: accessed 25 May 2018
National American Woman Suffrage Association. Ed. Ida Husted Harper. The History of Woman Suffrage, volume VI, 1922, pp. 196-197, digitized by Project Gutenberg, digitally released 2009, accessed 15 June 2018. [LINK]
William Lindsay White Collection, Kansas Collection, RH MS 608, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas Libraries, http://hdl.handle.net/10407/9931740673: accessed 11 July 2018.