Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1890-1920
Biography of Lulu Roberts Platt, 1865-1934
By Linda D. Wilson, Independent Historian
For a second bio sketch for Lula Platt, click here.
North Carolina suffragist Lulu (also Loula) Roberts was born circa 1865 in Buncombe County, North Carolina to Goodson McDaniel Roberts and Frances (Ray) Roberts. Lulu was one of at least seven children born to the Roberts family. Her education included attendance at the Asheville Female College, the Pennington Seminary (a preparatory school in New Jersey), and a special course at Cornell University. On May 17, 1888, in Buncombe County, Lulu Roberts married Charles Malcom Platt, a lawyer born in New York circa 1855. Her husband died in 1898 in Asheville. Lulu Platt remained a widow throughout her life. To support herself, she opened a small inn known as the Manor at Albemarle Park in Asheville on January 1, 1899. She advertised that the inn, located along a streetcar line, had many amenities such as steam heat, electric lights, and fireplaces. Apparently, she continued to operate the inn until at least 1930 as indicated by the federal census taken that year.
From extant records Lulu Platt worked in the suffrage movement from 1913 to 1920, the year the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified. The first mention of Platt's work in the suffrage movement occurred on July 14, 1913, when the Equal Suffrage League of North Carolina was organized. In volume six of The History of Woman Suffrage, Platt is mentioned as "Mrs. Malcom Platt" and erroneously as "Mrs. Charlotte Malcom." The history states that she was elected as one of three vice presidents of the newly formed organization. Charter members numbered approximately two hundred men and women. The league's first annual meeting was held in Charlotte, North Carolina, from November 9 to 10, 1914. Platt was reelected as vice president for a second term, serving in that position from July 1914 to November 1915. At the second annual state meeting in 1915 Lulu Platt was elected president. Apparently, she held that position until 1917, because no meeting was held in 1916. In 1917 Otelia Carrington Cunningham was elected president.
In February 1914 she issued a call for a gathering of men and women who believed in "votes for women" to meet on February 19, 1914. On that date the Asheville Equal Suffrage League was organized. Among the approximately 125 attendees were prominent lawyers who spoke in support of women's suffrage. Platt was unanimously elected temporary chair of the league. Maude Waddell and Susie F. Hunter were elected temporary secretary and treasurer, respectively. Platt predicted that the women citizens of North Carolina would have the vote in five years. She served four terms as president of the Ashville league.
In January 1920 Lulu Platt attended the annual state convention of the North Carolina Equal Suffrage League held at Greensboro. During the convention a memorial service in honor of Dr. Anna Shaw, former president of the National American Woman's Suffrage Association (NAWSA), was held. After the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed in 1920, Platt received an engraved plaque with the signature of Carrie Chapman Catt, former president of NAWSA.
Platt continued in public affairs by presenting speeches and holding fund-raising campaigns. In December 1919 she spoke before "a large number of members" of the Kiwanis Club in Asheville. In 1920 she was one of five of the first women delegates to the state Democratic convention. During 1920 Platt canvassed the tenth congressional district and spoke in every precinct. In January 1928 Platt entertained a club benefit bridge party at her home known as "Buncombe Hall." The funds raised benefitted the women's clubhouse.
With her prior political exposure while working in the 1920 Democratic campaign, Lulu Platt announced her candidacy for state senator in 1922. She was the first woman candidate for the Democratic nomination as state senator. Well known in Charlotte and Asheville "in matters of society and state," she claimed that she entered the race, because she wanted to serve the citizens of Buncombe County. Apparently, she lost the race because no other newspaper accounts mention her again regarding the nomination.
Lulu (Roberts) Platt was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the United Daughters of the Confederacy. She continued to be active in the civic affairs of Asheville and Buncombe County. For several years she served as chair of the local O. Henry Memorial movement (established in 1918 by the Society of Arts and Sciences). She died on December 27, 1934, in Asheville and was buried beside her husband on December 29, 1934, in Riverside Cemetery.
Sources:
Asheville (North Carolina) Citizen-Times, February 16, 1899; February 20, 1914; December 13, 1919; January 26, 1920; May 14 and June 3, 1922; January 4, 1928.
Charlotte (North Carolina) Observer, February 15, 1922.
Daughters of the American Revolution Lineage Books, for "Mrs. Loula Roberts Platt," accessed through Ancestry.com on April 18, 022.
Ida Husted Harper, History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. 6 (NY: National American Woman Suffrage Association, 1922), 490 and 492.
Knoxville (Tennessee) Sentinel, February 20, 1914.
News and Observer (Raleigh, NC), February 12, 1914.
New York, State Census, 1855, Sweden, Monroe County, New York. [for Charles M. Platt]
North America, Family Histories, 1500-2000, for "Loula Roberts" and "Charles Malcom Platt," accessed through Ancestry.com on April 18, 2022.
North Carolina, U.S., Death Index, 1908-2004, accessed through Ancestry.com on April 18, 2022.
North Carolina, U.S., Death Records, 1909-1976, accessed through Ancestry.com on April 18, 2022. The death record gives her birth date as October 14, 1863. However, the more contemporaneous federal census records indicate a birth year of 1865.
North Carolina, U.S., Marriage Records, 1741-2011, accessed through Ancestry.com on April 18, 2022.
U.S. Census, 1870 and 1880 Asheville, Buncombe County, North Carolina.
U.S. Census, 1880, Syracuse, Onondaga County, New York. [for Charles Malcom Platt]
U.S. Census, 1900, Limestone, Buncombe County, North Carolina.
U.S. Census, 1920, Asheville Ward 2, Buncombe County, North Carolina.
U.S. Census, 1930, Asheville, Buncombe County, North Carolina.
U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995, 1907 city directory for Asheville, North Carolina.
U.S. Find a Grave Index, 1600s-Current, for Charles Malcom Platt.
U.S., School Catalogs, 1765-1935, for Charles Malcom Platt, who attended Williams College, in Massachusetts, accessed through Ancestry.com on April 19, 2022.