A poignant reminder that rights are hard won, and history is never a sequence of inevitable events. Suffragists had been trying to gain rights in the U.S. for over a quarter century, yet had scored wins in only four states by 1904. Miss Elaine Davis, who thought the sight of women voting so novel, would have to wait eight more years before she could cast her own vote for a president in California; women in most other states would wait 16 years until the Nineteenth Amendment was finally passed in 1920.
SAW THE WOMEN CAST THEIR VOTESMISS ELAINE DAVIS WITNESSED SPECTACLE THAT WAS A DECIDED NOVELTY TO HER
Was in Boise City on Election Day And Heard Members of the Fair Sex Discuss PoliticsMiss Elaine Davis of this city, who is on her way east for an extended tour, happened in Boise, Idaho, on election day and was the guest of a friend of the Davis family, who is vice president of the Republican State Central Committee. She saw women go to the polls and vote with as much interest as the men. It was a novel sight for Miss Davis, and she was amused to hear women debating political issues among themselves. Everything passed off quietly and orderly at the polls, and the lady voters were accorded the respect due their sex.
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– Press Democrat, November 15, 1904