Activism
La Follette was active in the women's suffrage movement at the state and national levels. Beginning in 1909, to express her views on women's suffrage and other topics of the day, she wrote and edited a weekly "Home and Education" column for La Follette's Weekly Magazine, a magazine started by her husband and later became The Progressive. In 1911 and 1912 she wrote a syndicated column for the North American Press Syndicate.
La Follette's interest in women's suffrage led to her membership in the National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1910, and joined its national board in 1911. However, when a referendum on women's suffrage in Wisconsin was to be decided in a general election in November 1912, she resigned from the NAWSA to devote her efforts to secure its passage. Suffragists made appearances at more than 70 county fairs in 1912, including La Follette, who visited seven of them in ten days. Despite their efforts, the referendum was defeated by a vote of 227,024 to 135,546.
When subsequent referendums to gain voting rights for women in Wisconsin were defeated in 1913 and 1915, La Follette, like other suffragists at that time, decided to devote her efforts to a national campaign for a women's suffrage amendment to the U.S. Constitution. On April 26, 1913, La Follette was among the members of the public who spoke before the U.S. Senate Committee on Women's Suffrage, delivering what the National Magazine described as "a remarkable and forcible address" at the gathering. She was among the 94 suffragists who met with President Woodrow Wilson in the White House during the early days of his administration. Determined to gather public support for the constitutional amendment on women's suffrage, La Follette joined the lecture circuit to address audiences in the Midwest. In addition, she gave numerous speeches in her home state in 1919 to assure that Wisconsin voters would support ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment.
La Follette also opposed the ongoing oppression of African Americans. In 1914 she addressed the colored Young Men's Christian Association, raising an argument that segregation of colored people on street cars, public conveyances, and government departments was wrong. La Follette added that there would be no constitution of peace until the question is "settled right".
In 1915 La Follette helped found the Woman's Peace Party, which later became the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. After World War I, she was active in the Women's Committee for World Disarmament, and helped found the National Council for the Prevention of War in 1921. La Follette and other women influenced governments to convene the Naval Arms Limitation Conference in 1922.
After her husband's death on June 18, 1925, his seat in the U.S. Senate was offered to her, but she turned down the opportunity to become the first woman Senator, perhaps because it would have upset the very balance between her public and private lives that she is esteemed for.
