Museum to host Nodaway Co. women’s suffrage program

NCHS 2025 – Voting Rights – 1

MARYVILLE, Mo. — On May 10, Second Saturday Coffee at the Nodaway County Historical Society Museum will be followed by a free program on voting rights in the county.

According to a news release from the historical society, the museum is partnering with The Rose Theatre’s Smithsonian exhibit, Voices and Votes: Democracy in America.

Citizens of Maryville and the surrounding county were at the center of the women’s suffrage debate. Elyssa Ford, history professor at Northwest Missouri State University, will discuss this involvement in a lecture starting at 11 a.m. Second Saturday Coffee on May 10 will be held as normal from 9 to 11 a.m.

The program will continue with the unveiling of a newly redesigned exhibit about women’s suffrage in Nodaway County. The exhibit was created by Northwest history student Shelby Chesnut.

A final part of the program will be an exhibit that highlights local music teacher Alma Nash. She graduated from the Maryville Seminary, and in 1913 took an all-women’s band to march in a national women’s suffrage parade held in Washington, D.C. that spring.

Thanks to donations from the community, the museum recently acquired the Alma Nash archives. The exhibit will provide a sneak-peek of that important collection.

The May 10 program is sponsored with funding from Missouri Humanities.