1914 Biography - Caroline E. Merrick

Merrick, Caroline E., was a daughter of Capt. David and Elizabeth (Patillo) Thomas. She was born at Cottage Hall, parish of East Feliciana, La., Nov. 24, 1825, and died in New Orleans, March 29, 1908. Her father was a native of South Carolina and a soldier of the war of 1812, settling afterward in Louisiana where he became a prominent planter. Mrs. Merrick was secretary of the board of St. Ann's Asylum for Widows for 12 years, and in the constitutional convention of 1879 she with Mrs. Saxon petitioned the convention to remove those disabilities which restricted the independent action of women, and to grant them a vote in educational matters, since many were large tax-payers. The convention gave them a public hearing, at which Mrs. Harriett Keating, of New York, and Mrs. Saxon spoke, and Mrs. Merrick made the concluding address. Her husband encouraged her to the undertaking which resulted in the concession which enabled women of 21 years and older to hold any managerial position under the school laws of the state. Another constitutional convention was held in 1899 and another opportunity was afforded Mrs. Merrick and her associates to plead their cause. They begged for power to sign notarial acts, to witness wills, to own their own wardrobes, to draw their own money from banks without written authorization from their husbands, and to exercise municipal suffrage. But the convention revoked the concessions granted in 1879, and gave in its place only the small privilege of voting when a question of imposing taxes came up, a privilege restricted to tax-paying women. Mrs. Merrick continued to work for the enfranchisement of women in her own state and elsewhere. She was made honorary vice-president for life of the Woman's Suffrage association of Louisiana when she resigned the presidency in 1900. For 10 years she was president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of Louisiana, and was one of the first Southern women to enter the general society of which she became honorary vice-president. She was the author of published stories of pronounced literary merit and of a volume of recollections of her own times entitled "Old Times in Dixie Land." She was a notable example of what a woman may do when actively interested in public and private benevolence, and at the same time maintain her position as a leader in domestic circles.

Contributed 2021 Nov 04 by Mike Miller, from Louisiana: Comprising Sketches, edited by Alcee Fortier, published in 1914, volume 3, pages 298-299.