Louisiana Leaders: Notable Women in History

One of the first pioneers in the Louisiana women's suffrage and temperance movements, Caroline Merrick was born to a prominent family in East Feliciana Parish and married Judge Edwin T. Merrick whose career would eventually take him to New Orleans. During the late 1870s she began to involve herself in civic activities, including serving on the board for St. Anna's Asylum in New Orleans, an institute for poor women and children run entirely by women. In 1878 a German woman inmate revealed that she had $1000 dollars and on her deathbed wrote a will giving the money to the Asylum that had sheltered her. When the will was probated, it was found to not be "worth the paper it is written on" because it was witnessed by "incapables". Those judged incapable to witness a legal document were "women, insane, idiots, and felons."

Spurred by the injustice of losing this money, Caroline and Elizabeth Lyle Saxon drew up a petition to present to the state constitutional convention that was meeting in New Orleans in 1879. The two women secured over four hundred signatures for their petition and Caroline Merrick 's speech to the full convention won much acclaim. The matter caused a sensation, received often positively even in remote parishes.

While the convention granted them only a minor concession , granting women 21 years of age or older eligibility for office of control and management on school boards, it was the start of further women's movement activities involving suffrage, social reform, improved child labor laws, etc. The following decade of church societies, temperance unions, and women's clubs would empower women to step outside their narrowly defined societal roles and agitate for change.

During this period Mrs. Merrick was instrumental in temperance work, inviting nationally known leader Frances Willard to speak in New Orleans. Willard felt she was a "lady who can make the W.C.T.U. a success, even in the volatile city of Mardi Gras". Merrick began a ten year term as president of the local W.C.T.U., and within several years saw the growth of similar organizations around the state. She became president of the National W.C.T.U. in 1882. In 1892 she organized the Portia Club devoted to the study of the legal rights of women and children who later joined the Era Club to gain the right for female taxpayers to vote on tax issues.