Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1890-1920
Biography of Alice Caroline Peake Daniels, 1849-1928
President, Atlanta Equal Suffrage Association; Recording Secretary and State Treasurer, Georgia Woman Suffrage Association; Chairman, Fifth District of the Atlanta Equal Suffrage Association; President, Atlanta Civic League; Chairman, Woman's Alliance of the Unitarian Church
By Amanda Ritter-Maggio, English instructor, University of Arkansas Community College at Hope-Texarkana
Alice Caroline Peake was born in Ottawa County, Michigan to Leonard Peake, a farmer, and Anna M. Cady Peake. She had three sisters, Harriet, Elizabeth, and Anna. On February 1, 1872, Alice married Howard "Harry" Daniels, in Rockford, Michigan. Howard was born in 1847 in Ohio and was working as a bookkeeper at the time of their marriage. The couple had six children: Warren, born in 1873; Stanley, born in 1874; Harliss, born in 1877; Laura, born in 1878; Lloyd, born in 1883, and Ralph, born in 1885. Only Stanley, Lloyd, and Ralph survived to adulthood. The family lived both in Ohio and in Cadillac, Michigan before moving to Atlanta, Georgia around 1900. Howard worked as a lumber dealer in the city, and Alice quickly became involved in civic and suffrage organizations.
By 1901, Alice had been elected President of the Atlanta Equal Suffrage Association. On February 2, 1902, Alice and the organization's secretary, Emma Lou Garrett, penned a letter to the Atlanta Charter Revision Committee outlining the organization's main arguments for woman suffrage. The letter was published in its entirety in the Atlanta Constitution, the next week. Newspaper reporters noted that the committee "had a very important question to consider, which it had not previously reckoned with. The question is that of female suffrage." In the letter, Alice pointed out that women paid seventy percent of Atlanta's city taxes in 1895, "yet the women had no voice in the selection of the city's officials." In addition, she argued, women were not permitted to hold positions on the Atlanta school board, though
"women are particularly adapted to understand the training of a child's mind and its physical limitation, and we hold that this has been demonstrated by our own board of lady visitors, who have emphasized the need of improvement throughout our schools, not only in scholastic methods, but also in sanitary conditions. ... [A] body which has such absolute controls of the city's educational affairs and which controls so large an amount of the city's money should be elected directly by the citizens, both men and women."
She finished the letter by writing, "In the light of these and other facts which show the need of women in the city government, we respectfully petition your committee to recommend such revision of the city's charter as shall enable women to vote on all municipal affairs." The newspaper reported that the committee members openly laughed at the request; one member, Captain J.W. English, was quoted as saying, "The question of female suffrage would stir up no end of trouble, particularly in the race question, of white and negro women voting."
Undeterred, Alice continued her suffrage activism. In November of 1903, she was asked to give a scripture reading at the fourth annual Georgia Woman's Suffrage Association convention, which was attended by Rev. Anna Shaw.
On June 1, 1907, Howard died unexpectedly in Green Pond, South Carolina and was buried in Westview Cemetery in Atlanta. As a widow, Alice lived with her youngest child Ralph in an Atlanta boarding house. In 1909, she was elected President of the Atlanta Civic League. She also served as Chairman of the Woman's Alliance of the Unitarian Church in 1913.
Alice was elected Recording Secretary of the Georgia Woman Suffrage Association in 1914.
In February of 1915, she was an invited speaker at a meeting of the Fourth Ward Club of the Atlanta Equal Suffrage Association. That same year, Alice served as the GWSA state treasurer and chaired two of the association's committees: one that planned a suffrage spelling bee as part of the GWSA fundraiser, and another to plan a public birthday celebration for famed suffragist and abolitionist Lucy Stone. In July of 1918, Alice was elected chairman of the fifth district of the Atlanta Equal Suffrage Association
Around 1916, Alice began living at least part of each year with her son Stanley, his wife Lily, and their children in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where Stanley worked as the president of the Walsh and Weidner Boiler Works. She moved permanently to Chattanooga, where she was an active member of All Souls Unitarian Church, around 1920. Alice died on March 3, 1928 in Chattanooga. According to her obituary, her body was taken via the Dixie Flyer train from Chattanooga to be buried in Atlanta's Westview Cemetery.
Sources:
Ancestry.com. 1850 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. Images reproduced by FamilySearch.
Ancestry.com. 1910 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006. [Note that Alice Daniels's name is misspelled Alice Damele in this census]
Ancestry.com. U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.
Ancestry.com. Tennessee, U.S., Deaths and Burials Index, 1874-1955 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011
"Georgia, Fulton County Records from the Atlanta History Center, 1827-1955." Database with images. FamilySearch. https://FamilySearch.org : 14 October 2019. Atlanta History Center, Georgia.
"Georgia Suffragists to Present Petition." The Constitution [Atlanta, GA] 14 July 1918. Newspapers.com, https://www.newspapers.com/image/26908082/?terms=alice%20c.%20daniels&match=1
The History of Woman Suffrage vol. VI. Ed. Ida Husted Harper. New York: Little and Ives, 1922. [LINK to GA state report]
"Ladies Enter a Plea for Voice in Affairs." The Constitution [Atlanta, GA] 15 February 1902. Newspapers.com, https://www.newspapers.com/image/26864237/
"Michigan Births, 1867-1902." Database with images. FamilySearch. http://FamilySearch.org : 25 January 2021. Citing Secretary of State. Department of Vital Records, Lansing.
"Michigan Marriages, 1822-1995", database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FCBG-NHC : 9 November 2020), Howard Daniel, 1872.
"Mrs. Alice C. Daniels" [Obituary]. Chattanooga Daily Times 3 March 1928. Newspapers.com, https://www.newspapers.com/image/604173217/?terms=Alice%20C.%20Daniels&match=1
"The Political Rights of Women." The Constitution [Atlanta, GA] 15 Feb. 1914. Newspapers.com, https://www.newspapers.com/image/26851631/?terms=alice%20c.%20daniels&match=1
"Rev. Anna Shaw Arrived Today: Gathering of Woman's Suffragists Opens Tonight at Capitol." The Constitution [Atlanta, GA] 18 November 1903. Newspapers.com, https://www.newspapers.com/image/34063956/?terms=mrs.%20alice%20daniels&match=1
"Rummage Sale." The Constitution [Atlanta, GA] 25 Sept. 1913. Newspapers.com, https://www.newspapers.com/image/34214672/?terms=alice%20c.%20daniels&match=1
"Society." The Constitution [Atlanta, GA] 27 March 1915. Newspapers.com, https://www.newspapers.com/image/26890915/?terms=alice%20c.%20daniels&match=1
"Suffragists Oppose Death of Defectives." The Constitution [Atlanta, GA] 21 November 2015. Newspapers.com, https://www.newspapers.com/image/26896229/?terms=mrs.%20alice%20daniels&match=1
"United States Census, 1880." Database with images. FamilySearch. https://FamilySearch.org : 26 January 2021. Citing NARA microfilm publication T9. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d. [Note that Alice Daniels's name is misspelled "Allice Danuells" in this census]
"United States Census, 1900." Database with images. FamilySearch. http://FamilySearch.org : 25 January 2021. Citing NARA microfilm publication T623. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.
"United States Census, 1920." Database with images. FamilySearch. http://FamilySearch.org : 25 January 2021. Citing NARA microfilm publication T625. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.