LWVCNM - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- 2nd Vice President - Membership
Job Titles:
- Sustainability / Climate Change
Job Titles:
- 3rd Vice President - Program
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- President of the NM Federation of Women 's Clubs
Julia Brown Asplund was a leader in New Mexico's fight for women's suffrage between 1911 and 1920. She served as president of the New Mexico Federation of Women's Clubs from 1914-16 and helped to organize the automobile parade of more than 150 women to challenge U.S. Senator Thomas Catron's views on suffrage in October 1915. A few months later in February 1916, she was instrumental in forming the New Mexico chapter of the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage and served as a vice chairman. She was nominated to run for governor by the New Mexico Women's Party (successor of the Congressional Union) in 1920, but declined the nomination. Julia was also a trained librarian who devoted her professional life to expanding library services throughout the state. She lobbied for state financial support and served in many leadership positions to improve library access and quality.
Julia Brown was born on October 6, 1875 in Palmyra, Missouri. Her father was an educator and minister, and her mother taught piano. Early evidence of her commitment to women's suffrage is found in a statement she wrote at the age of 15, "I am very strong for woman's rights, you know. I think I shall become a second Susan B. Anthony."
Julia attended Lake Forest College in Illinois from 1891 to 1893 and then Tarkio College in Missouri where she graduated in 1895. She taught school in Iowa and Missouri over the next four years and then attended Drexel Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to become a librarian. She graduated in 1901 and taught cataloging and acquisitions at Drexel until 1903.
Julia moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1903 to work as the first trained librarian at the University of New Mexico. She also taught history classes. She married Rupert Asplund, a professor of Latin and Greek, in 1905 and resigned from the University as was the custom of the times. The couple had one child in 1906. They moved to Santa Fe in 1909 when Rupert was appointed the chief clerk of the territorial education department. (New Mexico became the 47 th state in 1912.) Julia became active in a number of organizations, including the Santa Fe Women's Club and the Santa Fe Board of Trade, two groups very active in community improvement and women's suffrage in the 1910s. The Board of Trade sponsored the Santa Fe Library, and Julia took a special interest in serving on the library committee.
The New Mexico Federation of Women's Clubs was formed in 1911. Julia recommended that the federation include a library committee and became its first chair. She also accepted the position as recording secretary in 1911 and was elected to a leadership role as president of the federation for two terms, 1914-15 and 1915-16. This group voted unanimously in favor of women's suffrage at its 1914 state convention and worked vigorously in support for the next six years. Under Julia's leadership, the federation lobbied the state legislature successfully for women's property rights in 1915 and championed other progressive legislation related to the welfare of women and children that later became law.
As president of the NM Federation of Women's Clubs, Julia helped to organize the automobile parade of more than 150 women to US Senator Thomas Catron's home in October 1915. Catron was opposed to women's suffrage, and the parade was a strategy to demonstrate the breadth of support for it. Julia gave a short speech to the Senator about "The Superiority of the Susan B. Anthony Amendment" to grant suffrage to all women in the U.S. Constitution, rather than rely on state-by-state efforts to extend the vote to women. Several months later, in February 1916, Julia was instrumental in organizing the New Mexico chapter of the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage, the organization formed by Alice Paul to work for the federal amendment. She served as one of the vice chairmen of the group along with other prominent suffragists from around the state.
U.S. entry into the First World War in 1917 shifted the activities of all women's clubs from suffrage and domestic issues to helping with the war effort. Representing the NM Federation, Julia made speeches about how local women's clubs could and should contribute. Women's wartime contributions were widely praised so that, when the war ended in 1918, support for woman's suffrage expanded substantially. Both New Mexico political parties became more committed to suffrage in their platforms and rhetoric.
The 19 th Amendment was passed by the U.S. Congress in 1919 and sent to the states for ratification. Three-quarters of the 48 states had to pass the amendment before it could be adopted into the Constitution. New Mexico was the 32 nd state to ratify in a special legislative session called by the governor in February 1920. Almost immediately, Julia was nominated by the New Mexico Women's Party (successor to the Congressional Union) to run for governor, but she declined in order to serve on the executive committee of the state Republican Party. She was the first woman to speak at a state political party convention in 1920. She was also appointed as the first woman regent of the University of New Mexico from 1921-23. Notably, she persuaded the Board of Regents to fund a library building rather than an engineering building.
Julia maintained a commitment to library quality and access throughout her life. She was especially committed to providing books to children in English and Spanish. In the 1920s she continued to advocate for state funding of traveling libraries, which were finally established in 1929 as the Library Extension Service with a budget of $2,000. Julia served as the first administrator and set up processes to procure and distribute 500 books. Later Julia was appointed as the first chair of the newly created State Library Commission in 1941 and served in that position until 1954. In 1949, the American Library Association awarded her a Citation of Merit. Julia died on July 26, 1958 at the age of 82.
Job Titles:
- Advocacy Team / Observer Corp
Job Titles:
- Volunteer Coordinator / Outreach
Nina Otero-Warren is a pioneering suffragist, political figure, and educator in early twentieth-century New Mexico. Descended from a family with Hispano roots which go back to original colonizing expeditions by Spain of Nuevo Mexico, she was born near Los Lunas in 1881.
Otero-Warren was raised by a mother who was educationally and socially active. In the early 1900's her mother was the director of the Santa Fe Board of Education and her home was a locus of political and social exchange between Hispanos and the white upper-class community of Santa Fe.
After attending Catholic boarding school in St. Louis, where she was taught that women could have careers as teachers and community leaders, Otero-Warren returned to New Mexico where she taught her many siblings what she had learned in school and learned from her male relatives how to shoot to protect herself.
In 1897, her family moved to Santa Fe when her father's cousin, Miguel Otero II was appointed territorial governor. This move introduced her to a wider circle of political and social acquaintances, and she became a popular addition to Santa Fe's social life.
In 1908, Otero-Warren married Lt. Rawson D. Warren, a cavalry officer and commander at Ft. Wingate near Gallup, New Mexico. Two years later she returned to Santa Fe. There are several rumors regarding the reason for the end of the marriage, but it appears that Otero-Warren did not like to strictures of married and Army life. She must also have missed the political and social life of the state capitol, Santa Fe. Otero-Warren obtained a divorce, but continued to use her married name. She told people her husband had died and called herself a widow to escape the religious and social stigma of being a divorced woman in the dominant Catholic society of conservative, early twentieth-century New Mexico.
In 1914, Otero-Warren began working with Alice Paul's Congressional Union in the fight for women's suffrage. Because of her hard work and commitment to lobbying legislators for women's suffrage, she quickly rose in the ranks of the state Congressional Union. The Congressional Union recognized the importance of have a native Hispana leader in the fight for suffrage. She was the first Hispana state leader of the Congressional Union in New Mexico, and her leadership rallied support from both the Spanish- and English-speaking communities. When Alice Paul asked Otero-Warren to take on this role, Otero-Warren replied, "I will keep out of the local fuss…but will take a stand and a firm one whenever necessary for I am with you now and always." Because of Otero-Warren's ability to bridge the differences between native Hispanos and the white, English-speaking population of New Mexico, the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified by the New Mexico legislature on February 21, 1920. She played such an important role in this activist effort that Alice Paul, the leader of the Congressional Union, credited Otero-Warren with ensuring New Mexico ratified the Nineteenth Amendment. New Mexico obtained full suffrage as the federal amendment was ratified in 1920.
After the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, Otero-Warren turned her prodigious advocacy skills to improving life for Hispanos and Native Americans in New Mexico. Her first act was to run for New Mexico's single seat in the United States House of Representatives in 1922. She received the Republican nomination for the seat, beating the incumbent, Nestor Montoya, in the primary. Therefore, she became the first Hispana to run for a seat in the United States House of Representatives. She campaigned on improved education, healthcare, and welfare services. She also wished to preserve Hispano culture. She was defeated by John Morrow by 10,000 votes. Contributing to her defeat was the disclosure of her divorce, by her cousin, former New Mexico Territorial Governor Miguel Otero, and her stance on teaching Spanish in public schools and employment of Hispana teachers.
From 1917 to 1929, Otero-Warren served as one of New Mexico's first women government officials as Santa Fe's Superintendent of Instruction. She was committed to improving education for Hispano, Native American, and rural students. Among other innovations, she raised teacher's salaries, repaired dilapidated school buildings, increased the school term to nine months, and changed the curriculum to emphasize bilingual and bicultural education. This included English language instruction in the classroom, teacher sensitivity to different cultures, Spanish instruction through the arts, no punishment for speaking Spanish in the classroom or in the schoolyard, and parent-teacher instruction of artisan trades. Otero-Warren referred to this as Americanization with kindness and it was revolutionary at a time when most schools in the Southwest punished Hispano students for speaking Spanish.
In 1923, Otero-Warren was briefly inspector of Indian Schools in Santa Fe County. She advocated against sending Native American students to boarding schools off the reservation and tried to temper attempts to Americanize the students by including opportunities to learn about Native history, culture, and traditions.
Throughout the thirties and forties, Otero-Warren held various public positions in the CCC and other New Deal administrations. She also worked on preservation of historic buildings in Santa Fe and Taos, and the preservation and celebration of Hispanic and Native cultures, arts, and languages.
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- Office Manager, Webmaster, Zoom Host