Historical museum has suffrage exhibit

Clark County Historical Museum The silk wedding dress of 13-year-old Sarah J. Anderson is a part of an exhibit at the Clark County Historical Museum.

A celebration of Washington's 2010 women's suffrage centennial opens today in Vancouver, with additional materials that illustrate why it took so long to get the vote.

The traveling exhibit — "Catharine Paine Blaine: Seneca Falls and The Women's Rights Movement in the State of Washington" — examines how settlers' reform ideas helped the cause of women's rights here.

The Clark County Historical Museum at 1511 Main St. is supplementing the exhibit with pieces from its own collection.

The local artifacts illustrate the lives of the women who lived in Washington in the second half of the 19th century, including 13-year-old bride Sarah Jane Anderson.

Catharine Paine Blaine and her husband, David E. Blaine, were the first Methodist missionary couple in Seattle in 1853. At 18, Blaine was one of the 100 signers of the Declaration of Sentiments at the July 1848 Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, N.Y.

"It was a long time from 1848 to 1910," when Washington women got the right to vote, said Lisa Christopher, the museum's visitor services coordinator.

There weren't many women in the Northwest, and the ones who made the trek worked hard, Christopher said.

"It was a physical, grueling life," Christopher said.

The local portion of the exhibit will showcase the wedding dress of Sarah Jane Anderson, who was 13 when she married Reese Anderson. She raised 14 children at their Hazel Dell home, and her name lives on in the community through Sarah J. Anderson Elementary School.

Interactive components include donning a muslin skirt and riding sidesaddle.

In the mid-1880s, when suffrage was briefly granted, Blaine was finally able to cast her vote. She died in Seattle in 1908, two years before Washington granted women's suffrage for good in 1910. That was 10 years before the 19th amendment in 1920.

Members of the Clark County League of Women Voters will be at today's exhibit debut with voter registration material and information on public officials.

The suffrage exhibit runs through the end of the year. It is a joint project of Women's Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls, N.Y., and the Washington State Historical Society.

The opening night of the exhibit will feature free admission, since it coincides with July's "First Thursday" program in the Museum After Hours series. At 7 p.m., Linda Chalker-Scott will discuss common myths and misconceptions that plague home gardeners and horticultural professionals.

Chalker-Scott is an associate professor of horticulture and landscape architecture at Washington State University and an extension urban horticulturist at WSU's Puyallup Research and Extension Center. Chalker-Scott wrote "The Informed Gardener" and will sign copies of her book.

The museum is open for free from 5 to 9 p.m. on First Thursdays. Go to wwww.cchmuseum.org for more information.