Pinkham, Wenona Osborne, 1882-1930

Wenona Osborne was born in 1882, probably in the midwest. Her family traveled by "prairie schooner" to the plains of Colorado when WO was five. After her father died, perhaps while she was in high school, she became the chief financial support for her mother, three brothers, and a sister. While teaching in the Denver public schools, she earned a B.A. from the University of Denver. She married Henry W. Pinkham, a Unitarian minister and pacifist, in about 1911; they moved to Massachusetts, first to Boston and then to Newton Centre. Their daughter Louisa Catherine was born in 1915.

As state chairman of organization for the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association, 1913-1915, Pinkham was presented to audiences as an example of a woman voter, since Colorado had granted women suffrage years before. In 1917, Pinkham became executive secretary of the Boston Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government (BESAGG), and remained in this position when the organization became the Boston League of Women Voters. In late 1922 she left BESAGG and became associate executive secretary of the Massachusetts Civic League (MCL), an organization that promoted social welfare legislation and such issues as paying prisoners for their work. From 1924 until her death in 1930, Pinkham served as MCL's executive secretary. After her death, a group of her friends established a trust fund for her daughter Louisa Catherine. For additional biographical information, see #1026. For additional information about the trust fund, see the Florence Hope Luscomb papers (MC 394) at the Schlesinger Library.