League History

Brief History of the Asheville-Buncombe League

The Asheville-Buncombe branch of the League of Women Voters began in 1947.  Its founding members included Marjorie Lockwood, Helen Reed, Florence Ryan, Almeda Pickard, Florence Stradley, and Rosalie Davidson.  Marjorie Lockwood led the initial provisional League, and when we gained full status in 1949 Helen Reed became our first president.

Florence Ryan was an early women’s suffrage advocate and activist, having advocated for the cause in the years before the Nineteenth Amendment was passed in 1919.  Florence and her sister Nanine Iddings held suffrage meetings at that time in the Parker house on Charlotte Street.

All of the founders were civic leaders, and many were also involved locally with the AAUW and the YWCA.

The early League worked to register women to vote and to educate them on the issues, and they also worked to promote good government in this area and to encourage women to run for office.  Many women office-holders have been League members.

We are proud of the fact that our League was one of a few organizations in the 1950s to support racial integration, and we helped to integrate the Woolworth’s lunch counter.

Leah Karpen, our president from 1983 to 1985, helped to stabilize the League’s financial situation.  In the 1950s and 60s we ran a store downtown called The Refugee Shop where secondhand clothing and household goods were sold to help impoverished immigrants and as a source of income for us.  Later, we held rummage sales to raise money. Leah had the vision to establish the Florence Ryan Education Fund to ensure that the League would remain solvent. We are eternally grateful to her for all her efforts to raise the funds needed and establish the endowment.

Did you know that UNCA’s Ramsey Library houses something called “UNC Asheville Special Collections and University Archives” and part of that is something called “League of Women Voters of Asheville/Buncombe County Papers”?  There’s a tremendous amount of historical information there, including old copies of our newsletter, newspaper clippings, and much more. Here’s an inventory of the collection.  We hope in the future to write a more inclusive history of our organization with more information about the many notable women we have counted as members.

Past Presidents of the League of Women Voters of Asheville-Buncombe County