Gougar, Helen M.

Helen M. Gougar, a political activist and national suffrage leader, was the National Party faction candidate for Attorney General of Illinois, in 1896.  Gougar was the first woman in Indiana to run as a candidate for Prohibition interests. She did not win the race. As a leading suffrage activist, she was considered a speaker of convincing power.  Gougar  especially active in mid-western states and had a leading role in the passage of the Kansas law granting municipal suffrage to women in that state.  On the state level Gougar served as president of the Indiana Woman’s Suffrage Association for fifteen years, as well as being an officer of the State Woman's Christian Temperance Union.  As a lawyer Gougar was admitted to practice in all the courts of Indiana.