Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1890-1920
Biography of Mary Bergin Green, 1848-1941
By Necia Wolff, independent scholar
Mary Bergin was born in Grant, Wisconsin in 1848 to farmers Martin Bergin and Mary Bergin. She married a farmer, Chauncey A. Green, and lived as a young woman in Patch Grove, Wisconsin. They also lived for a while in Goshen, KS. They divorced sometime before 1911.
After they divorced, Mary B. Green and Chauncy Green moved to Chandler, Oklahoma. Mary B. Green was a property owner and a businessperson, renting rooms and stables at her home.
Chandler, Oklahoma was one of the towns visited by national leaders of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). The Chandler Daily Publicist newspaper reported that NAWSA President Dr. Anna Shaw spoke in Chandler on Monday, December 12, 1904, just days before the 1904 convention in Oklahoma City. Chandler women started a local chapter to support the suffrage cause.
While in Chandler, Mary B. Green was elected as an auditor at both the December 1904 and October 1905 Twin Territorial Woman Suffrage Association conferences. As an auditor, Mary Green's charge was to "examine and verify the books of the Treasurer" and report on her finding at the annual meeting.
Woman suffrage proponents in the Oklahoma territorial period strove to enshrine woman suffrage in Oklahoma's constitution. At the first convention in 1904, attendees adopted a resolution that called that noted, "Whereas in the building of this great commonwealth women have been equal factors with men in bearing equal burdens and share equal responsibilities therefore, Resolved ... of the Hamilton statehood bill, so the clause shall read: 'Said statehood shall never enact any law restricting the right of suffrage on account of sex, race, color or previous condition of servitude.'"
At the second convention in 1905, where Mary B. Green was re-elected as auditor, the resolutions adopted included the same strong call for woman suffrage upon Oklahoma becoming a state. One part of the resolutions noted, "Resolved, the enfranchisement of our women in our new constitution is not only a just right but a privilege for which it is our duty to labor; that we shall put forth new and untiring efforts to obtain the same in their behalf."
Mary B. Green died in 1941 in Chandler, Oklahoma.
Sources:
"Year: 1850; Census Place: District 24, Grant, Wisconsin; Roll: M432_998; Page: 14B; Image: 330," n.d. Ancestry.com. Accessed July 11, 2018.
"Year: 1870; Census Place: Patch Grove, Grant, Wisconsin; Roll: M593_1717; Page: 352A; Family History Library Film: 553216," n.d. Ancestry.com. Accessed July 11, 2018.
"Year: 1880; Census Place: Goshen, Clay, Kansas; Roll: 376; Page: 112B; Enumeration District: 032," n.d. Ancestry.com. Accessed July 11, 2018.
"Chauncey A Green" (1843-1911). Find A Grave." Accessed July 10, 2018. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/3669850/chauncey-a-green.
"Oklahoma," in The History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 6. (New York: Fowler & Wells, 1922), 521. [LINK]
The Chandler Publicist (Chandler, OK). 6 September 1901. The Gateway to Oklahoma History. Accessed August 21, 2018. https://gateway.okhistory.org/.
The Chandler Daily Publicist (Chandler, OK). 16 November 1904. The Gateway to Oklahoma History. Accessed June 25, 2018. https://gateway.okhistory.org/.
Proceedings of the Twenty-Fifth Annual Convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. (Washington, D.C., 1893): 159. Accessed August 21, 2018. https://books.google.com/books?id=gqMLAAAAIAAJ&dq=auditors+suffrage&source=gbs_navlinks_s.
Bill Corbett. "Suffrage Amendment." The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Accessed August 21, 2018. http://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=SU002.
Oklahoma State Register (Guthrie, OK) 22 December 1904. The Gateway to Oklahoma History. Accessed June 28, 2018. https://gateway.okhistory.org.
Chickasha Daily Express (Chickasha, OK) 27 October 1905. The Gateway to Oklahoma History. Accessed June 28, 2018. https://gateway.okhistory.org.
Chickasha Daily Express (Chickasha, OK) 31 October 1905. The Gateway to Oklahoma History. Accessed June 28, 2018. https://gateway.okhistory.org.
"Mary B Bergin Green" (1848-1941). Find a Grave. Accessed June 21, 2018. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/44945024/mary-b-green#.