From collection Candidates
Lydia B. Walton was elected as a School Director in Kennett Borough in Chester County, Pennsylvania in 1874. She was one of the first women to serve in the office in the state. Her brother, James P. Wickersham, served as the State Superintendent of Public Instruction from the 1860s into the 1880s. Wickersham was instrumental in opening up school offices to women in the state. He also supported school suffrage for women and provided editorials and articles in the Pennsylvania School Journal, which he owned and edited. Walton, a Quaker and life-long Republican, was a member of the school committee of a Friends school in Chester County, served on the board of several charitable organizations, and in the 1890s served as Postmistress of Kennett, Pennsylvania.
