The history of women’s suffrage in the United States is a long and tumultuous story, one that Eulalie Chafee Salley, an Aiken, South Carolina resident, helped to write. Eulalie was the wife of Aiken’s mayor, Julian Booth Salley, a caring mother of two, and a tenacious suffragist. Her passion in advocating for women’s right to vote began in 1909, when Lucy Tillman Dugas’ children were deeded to her husband’s mother during an illness. Outraged, Salley took to a Carolina newspaper to respond to an advertisement seeking new members of the South Carolina Equal Suffrage League (SCESL), and claimed it was “the best dollar I ever spent.”
Salley served as the first president of the SCESL and organized a number of evocative campaigns for women’s suffrage, flying in an airplane dropping suffrage flyers below and canvassing door- to-door in the unpaved countryside. While her husband was mortified and some of the public outraged, Salley harnessed her determined spirit to empower other women to fight for their rights. She received her real estate license in 1915, becoming South Carolina’s first female real estate agent, helping put Aiken on the map as one of the South’s most charming small towns.
Finally, at the age of 85, Salley witnessed former Governor Robert McNair sign the 19th Constitutional Amendment into action in the State of South Carolina. It is because of Salley’s persistence, compassion, and tenacity that women’s right to vote transformed from a dream into reality. The City of Aiken and The Willcox are proud to honor the inspiring legacy of a woman who had a large hand in writing the story of women’s suffrage. Salley exemplified every characteristic of what it means to be a true Southern woman, igniting change that would last for generations to come.
