Biographical Sketch of Sarah Frances “Fannie” Reynolds Clark

Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1890–1920

Biography of Sarah Frances “Fannie” Reynolds Clark, 1841–1936

By Nancy Alexander Simmons, Fairfax Station, VA

Woman Suffragist and Activist

Sarah Frances “Fannie” Reynolds was born in May 1841 in Mississippi to John Josiah Reynolds and Nancy Louisa Smith Reynolds; her father was a farmer. On February 17, 1866, she married Robert Baker Clark in Tishomingo, Mississippi. He was a dry goods merchant in Shannon, Mississippi. The couple had a daughter, Sulu, who was born in 1871 and a son, Dick Josiah, who was born about 1882 and died in 1886. Robert Clark died in Lee County, Mississippi, in 1894. The 1900 census shows Clark heading the household with her father living with her; both indicated their occupation was “capitalist;” but by 1920, she was living with her daughter and son-in-law in Okolona County, Mississippi.

Throughout her life, Clark supported causes that were important to her; most notable were suffrage, temperance, religious education, and the Confederacy. She held leadership positions in all of these areas, often concurrently.

Suffrage Activity

Clark's suffrage activities began in the 1890s. Specifically, the report on the “first Convention ever held in the interest of Woman Suffrage” in May 1897 lists Clark as both Superintendent of Industrial Opportunities for Women and a member of the convention of the Mississippi Woman Suffrage Association (MWSA).

Minutes of the state meeting in March 1898, record that Clark was the MWSA's President for the First Congressional District as well as its Superintendent of Industrial Opportunities for Women. Her report as superintendent noted that Mississippi had taken the lead among the states by founding an industrial college for girls that would train them for positions beyond teaching. She described the way the college worked and the types of certificates that are conferred. Of its graduates, she noted

“Women are employed as postmasters and assistants with salaries the same as men. As bookkeepers with salaries one-third of those paid to men. Clerks in stores are $12.50 to $25.00 per month. Girls are employed for telephones, as typewriters and stenographers at $25.00 to $40.00; as court reporters at $40.00 per week. Many women are employed as teachers. The State as well as individuals puts [sic] a smaller price on the work of women.”

She added that other women succeeded as flower gardeners and dairy farmers, but complained that “real” farmers and merchants did not carry over from year to year the women who worked for them.

At the MWSA meeting in Clarksdale in April 1899, Clark was vice president of the organization and was re-elected to that position at the end of the session; she also had continued as Superintendent of Industrial Opportunities for Women and was appointed 1st District President and a member of the Committee on Resolutions for the following year. Clark's report as superintendent was very similar to the one she made in 1898.

In 1908, Clark was elected vice-president of the MWSA at the state convention, which was hosted by Governor and Mrs. Edmund Favor Noel in the Governor's Mansion in Jackson; she also was appointed superintendent of the Bible department. The following year, she was elected Member of the National Executive Committee. In 1910 she served as vice-president of the MWSA—a position she held for several years. Clark also proposed a resolution that the MWSA president be authorized to appoint a committee on “Institutional Work” to obtain information and make recommendations on the management of the state's benevolent and educational institutions; the resolution was adopted.

A report of the 1911 MWSA convention activities noted that Clark had secured signatures of support on enrollment cards; she also served on the Committee on Legislation. Among the resolutions passed at the MWSA convention in 1912, during which Clark was vice president, was one that summarized that the principle of equal rights “expresses the American ideal of self-government, and as women are governed and taxed, logic and honesty both demand woman's enfranchisement by the states.” Additional resolutions congratulated other states and countries that had granted women equal suffrage and voiced a need for legislation to protect women and children working in industry, to regulate child labor and juvenile delinquency, and to allow women to serve as school trustees and county superintendents in Mississippi.

When the state convention met in the Senate chamber of the new Capitol in Jackson in April 1913, Clark was one of the scheduled speakers. The Okolona Messenger reported that Clark “is a mild-mannered lady of soft voice and pleasing manner, but she deceived her even tempered appearance, for hidden beneath is a brain as acute, a brain as sharp as was ever given to any master of debate and a tongue that is especially gifted in giving venom to the keenests [sic] shafts of sarcasm...” She recounted a story of a Methodist minister who placed his hand on a Bible and said he would “quit” his wife if she voted, to which Clark responded that this is a government “of the people for the people and by the people and that women are people.” During reports from local clubs, Clark advised “that the advice of men was valuable and should not be overlooked, as men had 6,000 years the advantage of women in the matter of the ballot.”

And in 1917, Clark served as Historian of the MWSA.

Activism in Other Organizations

As early as 1885, Clark was the President of the local Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in Shannon. She subsequently served as vice-president of the Mississippi WCTU In 1886 and 1887, second vice president in 1892, and regularly attended the WCTU state conventions. In 1902, she served as state parliamentarian and was elected as one of two women from Mississippi to be delegates to the World's Convention of the W.C.T.U. the following summer. The Okolona Messenger said of her “As a typical Southern woman, patriotic and progressive, no better or more brilliant representative could have been selected.” Clark was elected president of the state WCTU at its convention in 1905, a position she continued to hold until 1907. She spoke on parliamentary usage at the annual convention in 1907 and later was elected state vice president. In 1908, she attended the national convention in Denver, Colorado, and in 1916 she was elected to attend the national convention the following year. In 1922, Clark was again elected a delegate to the WCTU world convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Consistent and concurrent with her WCTU activities, Clark was involved in her Methodist Church and other religious groups, with her focus often on temperance. In May 1902, Clark participated in the North Mississippi Conference of the Women's Foreign Missionary Society in Grenada, Mississippi, by giving the noon devotional. In October 1908, the Home Mission Society of the Methodist Church held a week of prayer during which Clark led a session on “Power for Service.” Within two weeks after the suffrage convention ended in 1909, Clark was nominated for Superintendent of the Temperance Department at the state convention of the Mississippi Sunday School Association; she retained that position for at least 3 years. And in 1910, she had furnished articles on temperance for distribution to members of the Mississippi Sunday School Association and offered to help any school in the state that wanted “information regarding the plan, pledge, etc.” In 1911, Clark wrote in the Okolona Messenger that the Home Mission Society wanted to “go on record as protesting against using the figures of women in advertising tobacco, cigarettes, shooting galleries, bill boards, etc., as these places and artacles [sic] are in no way represented by women.”

Clark also was very active in the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) as a member of the Okolona Chapter from at least 1905 until 1935. She was a delegate to the national UDC convention in 1905 and to the state UDC convention in 1906, 1907, 1909, and 1914. She also read a poem in honor of Robert E. Lee at the celebration of his birthday in 1907. In 1914, Clark served as parliamentarian of the Mississippi UDC. And in 1935, Clark was named an honorary president of the Mississippi division of UDC. Consistent with her UDC activities, she assisted at meetings of Confederate veterans and contributed money to help build the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery.

Clark died in 1936 in Linn County, Missouri, and is buried in Verona Cemetery in Lee County, Mississippi, along with her husband and son.

SOURCES:

1880 U.S. Census, Mississippi. Shannon, Lee County, p. 197D, Enumeration District: 093. Digital images. Ancestry.com.

1900 U.S. Census, Mississippi. Beat 5, Lee County, p. 5, Enumeration District: 0052. Digital images. Ancestry.com.

1920 U.S. Census, Mississippi. Chickasaw, Okolona County, p. 26A, Enumeration District: 47. Digital images. Ancestry.com.

Ballots for Both: Thirteenth Annual Convention of Mississippi Woman Suffrage Association. Court House, Starkville, April 13-14, 1917. Lily Thompson Collection, Special Collections, University of Mississippi Libraries. <http://clio.lib.olemiss.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/suffrage/id/121/rec/1>

“Convention is Finished.” Jackson Daily News (Jackson, Mississippi), April 9, 1909, p. 2.

“Convention is Nearing a Close.” Jackson Daily News (Jackson, Mississippi), April 22, 1909, p. 25.

“Convention of W.C.T.U.” Jackson Daily News (Jackson, Mississippi), November 27, 1906, p. 8.

“Delegates Elected.” Okolona Messenger (Okolona, Mississippi), August 16, 1905, p.8.

Findagrave database and images accessed 05 June 2019, Find A Grave Memorial no. 104552133, citing Verona Cemetery, Verona, Lee County, Mississippi.

Findagrave database and images accessed 05 June 2019, Find A Grave Memorial no. 104702221, citing Verona Cemetery, Verona, Lee County, Mississippi.

Findagrave database and images accessed 05 June 2019, Find A Grave Memorial no. 26928778, citing Odd Fellows Cemetery, Okolona, Chickasaw County, Mississippi.

Harper, Ida Husted, et al., eds. The History of Woman Suffrage. Vol. VI (1900-1920). N.p.: National American Woman Suffrage Association, 1922, pp. 328, 331. [LINK]

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“Lee's Birthday.” Okolona Messenger (Okolona, Mississippi), March 13, 1907, p. 4.

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http://clio.lib.olemiss.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/suffrage/id/25/rec/11

Minutes of the Ninth Annual Convention Mississippi Woman Suffrage Association, Mississippi Woman Suffrage Association, University of Mississippi Libraries Digital Collections, Lily Thompson Collection, April 15-17, 1913. http://clio.lib.olemiss.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/suffrage/id/109/rec/12

Minutes of the Second Annual Convention of the Mississippi Woman Suffrage Association, Mississippi Woman Suffrage Association, University of Mississippi Libraries Digital Collections, Lily Thompson Collection, April 5-6, 1899. http://clio.lib.olemiss.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/suffrage/id/50/rec/13

“Missionary Program.” The Grenada Sentinel, May 31, 1902, p. 1.

Mississippi, Compiled Marriage Index, 1776-1935, Ancestry.com.

“Mississippi W.C.T.U. Elects All Officers.” Jackson Daily News (Jackson, Mississippi), October 8, 1916, p. 1.

Sixth Annual Report of the Mississippi Woman Suffrage Association, Mississippi Woman Suffrage Association, University of Mississippi Libraries Digital Collections, Lily Thompson Collection, 1910. http://clio.lib.olemiss.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/suffrage/id/92/rec/14

Mississippi Woman Suffrage Association 7th AnnualSession, Mississippi Woman Suffrage Association, University of Mississippi Libraries Digital Collections, Lily Thompson Collection, April 11-12, 1911. http://clio.lib.olemiss.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/suffrage/id/92/rec/14

“Mrs. Worthington's Letter.” Jackson Daily News (Jackson, Mississippi), October 1, 1913, p. 8.

“Notes and Comments.” The Delta Democrat-Times (Greenville, Mississippi), April 20, 1912, p. 6.

“Officers Elected by State UDC at Greenwood Meet.” The Laurel Leader-Call (Laurel, Mississippi), May 3, 1935, p. 6.

Okolona Messenger (Okolona, Mississippi), April 12, 1905, p. 8.

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Okolona Messenger (Okolona, Mississippi), May 1, 1913, p. 2.

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Report of the Organization of the Mississippi Woman Suffrage Association, Meridian, Mississippi,, Mississippi Woman Suffrage Association, University of Mississippi Libraries Digital Collections, Lily Thompson Collection, May 5, 1897. http://clio.lib.olemiss.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/suffrage/id/6/rec/19

“Society.” Okolona Messenger (Okolona, Mississippi), October 28, 1908, p. 8.

“State Sunday School Convention.” Jackson Daily News (Jackson, Mississippi), April 3, 1912, p. 3.

“Suffragists Elect Officers.” Jackson Daily News (Jackson, Mississippi), April 30, 1910, p. 2.

“Sunday School Workers.” Jackson Daily News (Jackson, Mississippi), February 8, 1910, p. 8.

Sword and Shield (Clinton, Mississippi), October 23, 1886, p. 4.

The Leader (Brookhaven, Mississippi), April 19, 1899, p. 1.

“The Mississippi W.C.T.U.” Mississippi Leader (Jackson, Mississippi), May 12, 1892, p 2.

“The Week of Prayer.” Okolona Messenger (Okolona, Mississippi), October 7, 1908, p. 8.

“W.C.T.U. Column.” Okolona Messenger (Okolona, Mississippi), December 4, 1907, p. 4.

“W.C.T.U. Column.” Okolona Messenger (Okolona, Mississippi), November 20, 1907, p. 9.

“The W.C.T.U. Convention.” Sword and Shield (Clinton, Mississippi), September 25, 1886, p. 3.

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