Mary Wilson McTeer, carte de visite, courtesy of Maryville College
“An Equal Suffrage Club was organized at Maryville, in East Tennessee. The husband of its President [McTeer] wore the blue through the long struggle of “the hot Sixties,” while the husband of the Corresponding Secretary rode the same four years, at the head of the column in the ranks of the gray. Both these veterans are members of this club, and today stand shoulder to shoulder, fighting … [to] strike the shackles from the arms of their wives and daughters.”
In 1893, Tennessee’s second suffrage club was founded in Maryville. Its president, MARY WILSON MCTEER, was born to missionaries in Syria, and she spent much of her childhood abroad. McTeer graduated from Maryville College in 1875, the first woman to graduate from a college in Tennessee. She served as state corresponding secretary for the Tennessee Equal Rights Association, which later became the Tennessee Equal Suffrage Association. McTeer passed away in 1898, and at her request, “the yellow and white so dear to her were intertwined over her heart.”