Clara McCarty is elected superintendent of Pierce County schools on November 2, 1880.

See Additional Media

On November 2, 1880, Clara McCarty (1858-1929) is elected superintendent of Pierce County schools. McCarty, still in her early twenties, is the first woman in Pierce County to win elective office. She was also (in 1876) the first college graduate of the University of Washington. McCarty wins this election three years before women in Washington Territory first obtain the right to vote. (Women win and lose the right to vote several times before 1910, when Washington state becomes the fifth state in the nation to enfranchise women.)

McCarty was born in Steilacoom. In 1858, during the treaty wars, her parents had evacuated their home in Sumner for Steilacoom and Clara was born there. She graduated from the Territorial University in 1876, and became certified to teach in Pierce County three years later.

McCarty married John H. Wilt, and declined re-election. The next Pierce County superintendent of schools was also a woman -- Cornelia Greer.


Sources:

Murray Morgan and Rosa Morgan, South on the Sound: An Illustrated History of Tacoma and Pierce County (Woodland Hills, California: Windsor Publications, Inc., 1984), 63; W. P. Bonney, History of Pierce County, Washington, Vol. 1 (Chicago: Pioneer Historical Publishing Company, 1927), p. 421.
Note: The day date of McCarty's election was added on October 17, 2006. .


Licensing: This essay is licensed under a Creative Commons license that encourages reproduction with attribution. Credit should be given to both HistoryLink.org and to the author, and sources must be included with any reproduction. Click the icon for more info. Please note that this Creative Commons license applies to text only, and not to images. For more information regarding individual photos or images, please contact the source noted in the image credit.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
Major Support for HistoryLink.org Provided By: The State of Washington | Patsy Bullitt Collins | Paul G. Allen Family Foundation | Museum Of History & Industry | 4Culture (King County Lodging Tax Revenue) | City of Seattle | City of Bellevue | City of Tacoma | King County | The Peach Foundation | Microsoft Corporation, Other Public and Private Sponsors and Visitors Like You