Just two months out from the Nov. 5 elections, local history lovers today honored an Elkhart woman who fought hard to get women the right to vote.
In the late 1800s Emma Molloy was a trailblazer for women’s rights and the temperance, or anti-alcohol movement. Men had no idea what to do with her, and many women even found her too radical for her time.
But on Wednesday Molloy, the city’s first female newspaper editor, achieved Hoosier immortality – a historical marker erected by the Indiana Historical Bureau. It was unveiled in front of the Elkhart Public Library.
Influenced by her first marriage to an alcoholic, Molloy wanted alcohol outlawed but pragmatically she lobbied for its moderate use. Determined to improve women’s lives, she fought for laws allowing divorce and voting rights.
Molloy, editor of the Observer newspaper in Elkhart, died in 1907. 13 years later, prohibition started and women won the right to vote.
Speakers at the unveiling included Julie Parke, museum administrator with the Elkhart County Historical Museum. Parke got emotional when talking about how her grandmothers, born in 1906 and 1916, could vote thanks to activists like Molloy.
She said people today can learn plenty from her life.
"She used her platform, the newspaper, her ability to write, her later role as a speaker, to make noise," Parke said. "And it's important when we see things that we think should be different, to make noise."
