Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1890-1920

Biography of Alice Gibson Roseborough, 1884-1967

By David Anzures and Reagan Rockers, undergraduate students, Northwest Missouri State University. Edited by Dr. Elyssa Ford, Northwest Missouri State University.

Born to John and Alice Gibson, Alice Gibson was the third child and only girl. She was born May 1884 in the Carondelet Township outside of St. Louis, Missouri. She had three brothers named Frank, Tom, and John. In 1904, Alice married her husband Lee B. Roseborough. He was a proprietor of a steam laundry service in Webster Groves, located just outside of St. Louis.

It was in Webster Groves that Alice played a part in women's suffrage. She served as the first president of the Webster Groves Suffrage League. Webster Groves Suffrage League was the third women's suffrage organization in Missouri, and its mission was "bringing together men and women who are willing to consider the question of equal suffrage and by the earnest co-operation to secure its establishment." The League began as a group for elite women but soon expanded to businesswomen, Jewish women, and even poor immigrant women.

Alice had been a member of the Equal Suffrage League of St. Louis since 1910 before the Webster Groves branch was established. She was elected to be the president of the Webster Groves branch in 1911. In her role, Alice held various parties for the members and worked with the National American Woman Suffrage Association to bring numerous suffrage speakers to Saint Louis, issue press reports, hold debates, organize street meetings, and establish branch organizations in the Saint Louis area. Following the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, Alice moved with her husband to Tennessee and continued to be involved in women's groups until her death in 1959.

Sources:

Information about the Webster Groves Suffrage League and the Equal Suffrage League of St. Louis can be found in the National American Woman Suffrage Association's The History of Woman Suffrage (New York: J.J. Little & Ives Company, 1922): 344 [LINK]; "History of Woman Suffrage in Missouri," edited by Mary Semple Scott, Missouri Historical Review XIV:3-4 (April-July, 1920): 302; "Politics, Economic Provisioning, and Suffrage in St. Louis: What Women Said, What Men Heard: Politics, Economic Provisioning, and Suffrage in St. Louis," by Linda Dobkins Harris, American Journal of Economics and Sociology 71:1 (January 2012): 54-76; and Kenneth Florey's Women's Suffrage Memorabilia: An Illustrated Historical Study (Jefferson, NC: McFarland Publishers, 2013). Information about the Missouri Equal Suffrage Association pins available in Florey's book (p.47). Alice Roseborough's society engagements are mentioned in newspaper articles in the St. Louis Republic and St. Louis Globe-Democrat.

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