Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1890-1920
Biography of Aimee Nelson DuBose, 1878-1971
By Heather M. Haley, Ph.D. Candidate, Auburn University, Alabama
The daughter of lawyer William Randolph and Octavia Levert (Owen) Nelson, Aimee Nelson was born on August 24, 1878 in Selma, Alabama. Aimee graduated from The Women's College of Baltimore (Maryland) in 1898 and married local physician Dr. Francis Goodwin DuBose on June 11, 1902 in Selma's First Presbyterian Church. Atlanta's Constitution newspaper commented in the days following their marriage that no couple in Selma was more popular than Dr. and Mrs. DuBose. Editors continued, claiming that Aimee, "besides being fair to look upon, is bright of mind, genial, sensible, and lovable."
It is unknown what influenced DuBose to become involved in the statewide movement for white women's voting rights. Alabama suffragists returned to their homes dejected after the failure to ratify a woman's suffrage initiative at the 1901 Constitutional Convention. The eagerness to extend voting rights to white women in the state dwindled until 1910, when Miss Mary Partridge published a call for a public meeting of local women at the Carnegie Library in every Selma newspaper. As a result of this meeting, a group of five prominent white women established the Selma Suffrage Association on March 29, 1910. Mrs. Aimee Nelson DuBose, wife of one of Selma's leading physicians; Mrs. Mary Amelia John Watson, daughter of Selma's mayor, Joseph Reid John; business manager of the Selma Times, Mary Howard Raiford; and sisters Mary Winslow Partridge and Mrs. Julie P. Hatch organized the Association. Mary Partridge served as the Association's first president and Mrs. Hattie Hooker Wilkins, who went on to become the first woman elected to the Alabama State Legislature, was an active participant in the organization.
The Selma Suffrage Association and, later, the Birmingham Equal Suffrage Association initiated a serious dialogue to unify all women's suffrage organizations in the state. Their ambitions came to fruition in 1912 with the establishment of the Alabama Equal Suffrage Association (AESA). DuBose was one of six Alabama delegates to attend the National American Woman Suffrage Association Convention in Philadelphia in November 1912.
DuBose died on May 10, 1971 and is buried next to her husband in Live Oak Cemetery in Selma. She was ninety-two at the time of her death.
Sources:
Alabama Deaths and Burials Index, 1881-1974. "Aimee Nelson Dubose." Ancestry.com Accessed January 5, 2019. https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=2543&h=1735410&tid=&pid=&usePUB=true&_phsrc=ZUI38&_phstart=successSource
Burnes, Valerie Pope. "Alabama Equal Suffrage Association." In Encyclopedia of Alabama. Last modified May 23, 2017. Accessed January 5, 2019. http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1150.
Fitts, Alston. Selma: A Bicentennial History. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2017.
Harper, Ida Husted, ed. The History of Woman Suffrage, 1900-1920. Vol. 6. New York: J. J. Little & Ives, 1922. [LINK]
"Social Life in Alabama: Selma," The Constitution, June 15, 1902.
Aimee Nelson DuBose Passport Photo (ca. 1924). Courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration.