From collection Candidates
Ellis Meredith was a Colorado journalist, editor, and suffrage activist. In 1893 she gained notice as an important lobbyist arguing the case for full woman suffrage in her state, a campaign that succeeded. With these equal suffrage and elective rights many women in Colorado ran for office in 1894. In that year Meredith, at the age of twenty-nine, was nominated by friends, while she was traveling in the East, for the State House of Representatives from Union County on the Populist/ People's Party ticket. She did not win. She was also known by her first husband's family name of Stansbury, and was listed on the People's ticket in 1894 as Mrs. Lyl Stansbury. The Rocky Mountain News (RMN), a paper with which she was associated , endorsed her candidacy referring to her quick wit, "a broad, comprehensive grasp of any topic," and a "womanly in character." (RMN, November 5, 1894). Meredith became active in the Democratic Party in the early twentieth century and campaigned for Woodrow Wilson in 1918. In 1910 Meredith was elected as Election Commissioner for the city of Denver.
As a young women Ellis Meredith worked as a stenographer. She began her career as a journalist in her mid-twenties writing for publications such as the Rocky Mountain News. She also wrote several books. Meredith married twice, divorcing her first husband. Howard Stansbury, and later marrying Henry H. Clement. She had no children. In addition to lobbying for woman suffrage in Colorado, after the 1894 campaign she traveled to states such as Utah in order to speak at church meetings and other venues on behalf of women's rights.
