Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1890-1920
Biography of Emma S. Albright, 1858-1940
By Yolanda Abu Khader, University of California, San Diego
Emma Strong Albright was born on December 10, 1858, to Truman Strong and Caroline Austin Strong in Huntsburg, Ohio. She married Penrose Hills Albright in 1886 and moved with him to Kansas together with her sister, Alma, her brother, Frank, and their mother, Caroline Austin Strong. Her husband was a lawyer, mayor of Winfield, Kansas, and founder of the P.H. Albright Farm Loan Company in 1881, which ran successfully until 1941. Emma and Penrose Hills Albright had three children: Penrose Strong Albright, James Henry Albright, and Carol Albright Collinson.
Mrs. Albright was an ambitious and influential person in the Winfield community. During the late 1890s and early 1900s, she served as District President of the Kansas Equal Suffrage Association and was involved in the town's civic and social affairs. She generously opened her home to functions such as the White and Yellow Ribbon Tea, at which attendees discussed the rights of women to exercise the ballot, according to an 1894 article in the Winfield Daily Courier. The event ended with the addition of many names to the Winfield Amendment Club. Mrs. Albright also made monetary contributions to the Kansas Suffrage Reveille newspaper. She was elected as a delegate to the state suffrage convention held in Topeka on October 14-15, 1902 and organized by the National American Woman Suffrage Association. During her lifetime, she took on many leadership roles pertaining to the advancement of women's rights and the betterment of her society.
Emma Albright passed away on Christmas night, December 25, 1940, at the age of 82 at her daughter Carol's home in Winfield. She is buried in the Highland Cemetery in Winfield, Kansas.
Sources:
"County Suffrage Convention," Sept. 18, 1902, Winfield Daily Courier, p. 5. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/77540874/winfield-courier/
"Winfield Pioneer Dies on Christmas," Wichita Eagle, Dec. 26, 1940, p. 3. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/77540169/obituary-for-winfield-pioneer-aged-82/
"White and Yellow Ribbon Tea," Winfield Daily Courier, Apr. 23, 1894, p. 2. www.newspapers.com/clip/77540970.
Cowley County Heritage Book, Cowley County, Kansas, www.ksgenweb.org/cowley/people/pages/pg112-115.html.
"Emma Strong Albright (1858-1940)," www.findagrave.com/memorial/95790668/emma-albright.
"From Far and Near," Kansas Suffrage Reveille: Organ of the Kansas Equal Suffrage Association. Mar. 1896, p. 3. Kansas Memory, Kansas Historical Society, www.kansasmemory.org/item/220498/page/3.
McClain, Claribel Albright, Some Records of the Albright Family. Filmed by the Library of Congress Photoduplication Service, 1982, p. 140.
National Endowment for the Humanities. "The Topeka State Journal. [Volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, November 23, 1895, Image 1." News about Chronicling America RSS, None, chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82016014/1895-11-23/ed-1/seq-1/.
P. H. Albright, www.cchsm.com/resources/misc/wortman_cc/albright_ph.html.
"Suffrage Meeting." Winfield Tribune, 26 Sept. 1903, p. 3. www.newspapers.com/clip/17700624/suffrage/.
"Suffragists in Kansas - Turning Point Suffragist Memorial." Turning Point Suffragist Memorial -, 19 Mar. 2020, suffragistmemorial.org/suffragists-in-kansas/
"The Topeka State Journal (Topeka, Kan.), November 20, 1895." The Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/resource/sn82016014/1895-11-20/ed-1/?st=gallery.
Martha B. Caldwell, "The Woman Suffrage Campaign of 1912," Kansas Historical Quarterly 12:3 (August 1943): 300-26. www.kshs.org/p/the-woman-suffrage-campaign-of-1912/12944.
Ward, Carolyn. "Penrose Hills Albright - KS-Cyclopedia - 1912." KS, www.ksgenweb.org/archives/1912/a3/albright_penrose_hills.html.