ΩPARA ΓPAR@ ` *TEXT ` Breckinridge, Madeline McDowell1872╨1920social reformerBorn in Woodlake, near Frankfort, Kentucky, on May 20, 1872, Madeline McDowell grew up from the age of ten in ╥Ashland,╙ the Lexington, Kentucky, home built by her great grandfather, Henry Clay. She was educated in Lexington and at Miss Porter╒s School in Farmington, Connecticut, and during 1890╨1894 she studied intermittently at the State College (now University) of Kentucky. In November 1898 she married Desha Breckinridge, editor of the Lexington Herald and brother of Sophonisba P. Breckinridge. In 1900 Breckinridge began her career in social reform by urging the establishment of a settlement house near Proctor, Kentucky, a poor rural town in a mountainous region she had visited on horseback the year before. In the same year she took part in a citizen movement against corruption in local politics and helped found the Women╒s Emergency Committee, shortly reorganized as the Lexington Civic League. The League agitated successfully for the establishment of playgrounds and kindergartens in poorer districts of the city, and after Breckinridge had observed the work of Judge Ben B. Lindsey╒s juvenile court in Denver in 1903╨1904 (where she had gone to recuperate from a flare-up of the tuberculosis that plagued her all her life) the League undertook campaigns for legislation setting up a juvenile court system, regulating child labor, and compelling school attendance. In 1900 Breckinridge also led in founding the Lexington Associated Charities, which organized community charity along modern casework lines and of which she was a director from 1907. In 1905 she began editing a serious and thoughtful woman╒s page in the Lexington Herald. From 1905 she was active in local, county, and state tuberculosis societies. She helped secure establishment of the state Tuberculosis Commission in 1912 and served as its vice-president until 1916, in which year her fund-raising campaign culminated in the opening of the Blue Grass (later the Julius Marks) Sanatorium in Lexington. In 1906 she was appointed to the industry and child labor division of the State Federation of Women╒s Clubs, and in 1908╨1912 she headed the federation╒s legislative division, through which she campaigned successfully for legislation granting women the vote in school elections. In 1910╨1912 she also served a term as a director of the General Federation of Women╒s Clubs. In 1912 the Civic League established the Abraham Lincoln School and Social Center, to which she thereafter gave much attention in fund-raising and innovative programming. From 1912 to 1915 and again from 1919 to her death Breckinridge was president of the Kentucky Equal Rights Association, which worked to secure legislation recognizing the rights of married women to enjoy their own earnings, to make wills, and to be equal guardians of their children, as well as legislation limiting working hours for women, providing for women physicians in state mental hospitals, and establishing other similar reforms. In 1913╨1915 she was a vice president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, on whose behalf she traveled and spoke widely, demonstrating a remarkable gift for oratory. The ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment by the Kentucky legislature in January 1920 was largely credited to her efforts. In 1920 she attended the International Women╒s Suffrage Alliance convention in Geneva and later in the year undertook an extensive campaign tour on behalf of the League of Nations and the Democratic party. She died in Lexington on November 25, 1920. vstyl ` ! ¬ 5¬ * 5¬ ; !I $ !I ▐ / !I ° !I !I !I ▐ 2 !I 6 5¬ 7 !I ½ 5¬ ¼ !I ½ !I ╗ !I
