Dates

• Existence: 1836 - 1911

Biography

Mary Jane Coggeshall came to Iowa from Indiana in 1865 with her husband, John Milton Coggeshall, and their children. From her home in Des Moines, Coggeshall was active in the cause for women’s suffrage on a state and national level. In 1870, she became a charter member of the Iowa Woman Suffrage Association (later known as the Iowa Equal Suffrage Association.) She served as the editor of its newspaper, The Women’s Standard, and as the Association’s president in 1890 – 1891 and 1903 – 1905. For the cause of women’s suffrage, she addressed Iowa House and Senate committees, and served on the Board of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. She marched in Boone, Iowa’s 1908 suffrage parade (one of the first in the United States), and Carrie Chapman Catt called her “the mother of woman suffrage in Iowa.” Coggeshall died in 1911 and was inducted into the Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame in 1990.

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