Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1890-1920

Biography of Annie H. Hoskins, 1857-1950

By Eileen W. Sateriale, freelance writer

Maryland Woman Suffrage Association recording secretary and representative from Harford County.

Anna Turner Hollingsworth was born on March 12, 1857 to Charles and Sarah Hollingworth in Harford County, Maryland, north of Baltimore. Nicknamed, Annie, she was the eldest of six children and as young woman, worked as school teacher in a one room school house with twelve pupils. Her Quaker family were members of the Little Falls Meetinghouse in Fallston. There, she met and married Joseph Hoskins, who worked as a dairy farmer. Their only child, Raymond, was born in 1889.

As members of the Quaker religion, women exercised equal rights with men in the eyes of the church. At that time, for other Protestant denominations, giving women equal rights with men was considered radical.

Starting in the northern United States in the mid-nineteenth century, a women's rights movement emerged with women's suffrage as one of the demands. However, the during the Civil War, politicians were focused on the war so the movement was put on hold. After the war, it reemerged and in 1878, Susan B. Anthony proposed a woman suffrage amendment. It would need three-quarters of the U.S. States to approve it in order for it to become law.

In the later part of the nineteenth century, the State of Maryland had various local women's suffrage chapters throughout the state with the chapter in Baltimore City being the largest. In 1894, the local chapters merged, becoming the Maryland Woman Suffrage Association which helped coordinate their efforts with the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA).

Annie H. Hoskins represented Harford County at the state conventions. She also served as corresponding secretary for the Maryland Woman Suffrage Association. A Library of Congress newspaper clipping dated February 7, 1906, "Demand the Right to Vote; National American Woman Suffrage Association Convention, Baltimore," listed Annie H. Hoskins as a state officer. She attended the weeklong NAWSA convention that month which was held at the Lyric Theatre. Speakers included Maryland President Emma Maddox Funck as well National President Anna Howard Shaw and Susan B. Anthony. Hoskins served as an officer of the Maryland Woman Suffrage Association for more than ten years, according to the History of Woman Suffrage, volume 6.

For years, Mrs. Hoskins worked with other members of the Maryland Association by submitting petitions to the Maryland General Assembly in Annapolis. However, each time the proposal was submitted, it was rejected. Maryland women did gain the right to vote in 1920 when thirty-six other states ratified the amendment and the nineteenth amendment became law of the land. On May 29, 1941, two decades after the 19th amendment became law, the Maryland General Assembly affirmed its support of women's voting rights. Annie Hoskins was eighty-four years old.

After 1920, Annie Hoskins and her husband, Joseph, lived in Harford county and were active in Little Falls Quaker community. Joseph died in 1931 and was buried in Little Falls Meeting Cemetery. Annie moved to Baltimore City where she lived until her death in 1950 at age 93. She was buried in Little Falls with Joseph and son, Raymond, who died 1910.

The Little Falls Meetinghouse in Fallston, Maryland, where the Hoskins family worshipped and where Annie taught prior to her marriage, is still in use today for Quaker meetings. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places.

SOURCES

Ancestry.com U.S. Quaker Meeting Record 1816-1935.
https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/quakermeetmins/?name=annie_hoskins

Buhle, Mari J. and Paul, The Concise History of Woman Suffrage, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1978, p 371.

The History of Woman Suffrage Volume V Part 58 [LINK]

Lantz, Emily Emerson. Demand the Right to Vote; National American Woman Suffrage Association Convention, Baltimore. Baltimore, Maryland, ante February 7, 1906. Manuscript/Mixed Material. Retrieved from the Library of Congress,
www.loc.gov/item/rbcmiller002834.

Maryland at a Glance Historical Chronology Maryland.gov, Aided by Robert J. Brugger, Maryland: A Middle Temperament, 1634-1980, Baltimore & London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988.
https://msa.maryland.gov/msa/mdmanual/01glance/chron/html/chron19.html

National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. "Maryland and the 19th Amendment."
https://home.nps.gov/articles/maryland-and-the-19th-amendment.htm

Redding, Nicholas, The History of Women's Suffrage in Maryland and Beyond. Episode 47 November 27,2017. Preservecast.org Kacy Rohr interview.
https://www.preservecast.org/2017/11/27/kacy-rohn-the-history-of-womens-suffrage-in-maryland-and-beyond/

Rohr, Kacy, Remembering Maryland Women's Fight for the Vote, March 19, 2017. The Maryland Historical Trust Blog.
https://mdhistoricaltrust.wordpress.com/2017/03/16/remembering-maryland-womens-fight-for-the-vote/

Romano, Kristen, Guide to the Woman Suffrage in Maryland Collection, Enoch Pratt Free Library Special Collections, October, 2002.
http://www.prattlibrary.org/uploadedFiles/www/locations/central/special_collections/MS%2004%20Guide%20to%20the%20Woman%20Suffrage%20in%20Maryland%20Collection.pdf

Singh, Linda L. Maj. Gen, Commission on the Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the Passage of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Maryland Manual On-line A Guide to Maryland and Its Government.
https://msa.maryland.gov/msa/mdmanual/26excom/html/26n19th.html

Harper, Ida Husted, et al., eds. The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI. [LINK]

Suffrage Supporters of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, 1900-1920 Binghamton University Center for the Historical Society of Women and Gender, March 16, 2018.
http://chswg.binghamton.edu/WASM-US/crowdsourcing/NAWSA_description.html

Tipton, Jim, Find a Grave
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/101532250/anna-turner-hoskins
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/101532054/joseph-b-hoskins
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/101532162/raymond-hollingsworth-hoskins

Wikipedia, Little Falls Meetinghouse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Falls_Meetinghouse

Wikipedia, Quaker Views on Women
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaker_views_on_women

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