Born: 3 November 1840, United States
Died: 11 August 1910
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Judith Ellen Horton
This entry is reprinted in full with permission from the National Women’s History Museum (United States of America). All rights reserved.
Acknowledgment of women in the party’s platforms in the 1870s and the creation of a Republican women’s auxiliary in the late 1880s kept women in the Republican fold after slavery ceased to be a political issue. Judith Ellen Foster founded the Woman’s National Republican Association in 1888, declaring that “woman is politics.” She challenged women to engage in partisan politics in order to reform society, which was a woman’s role. She built the WNRA into a substantial unit of the Republican party, and its members advocated for Republican candidates each election cycle.
I dare assert that woman’s political influence has been a necessary factor in the progressive legislation which distinguishes our time. – Judith Ellen Foster
IW note: Foster was also a suffragist, temperance activist and lawyer who is thought to be the first woman in Iowa who was actually engaged in practice, as well as the fourth woman admitted to argue a case before the Supreme Court of Iowa.