Ragland, Martha Ragsdale, 1906-1996

Civic worker, political campaigner, and advocate of civil rights, birth control, and women's rights, Martha (Ragsdale) Ragland was born in Paducah, KY in May 14, 1906, the daughter of Joseph Senter Ragsdale and Viva Jane (Troutt) Ragsdale . MRR graduated from Vanderbilt University (B.A. 1927, M.A. Economics 1928). From 1929 to 1933 under a grant with the National Records Council, MRR was a researcher in Washington D.C., for Ellsworth Huntington, and co-authored a book on eugenics with him. She returned to Tennessee and married Thomas Ragland in 1932; they had two children: Thomas, born November 24, 1934, and Sandra Jane (married David Demson ), born October 28, 1937. Thomas, Jr. graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1957 and Sandra from Radcliffe College, magna cum laude, in 1958. Thomas Ragland, Sr. was president of the Mountain City Mill Co. while the family lived in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In 1950 when TR became the manager of the Knoxville branch of the Ragland Bros. Co., a state-wide family wholesale grocery, the family moved to Knoxville . A year later, they moved to Nashville . TR was active in Americans for Democratic Action, a liberal political group. In 1946, MRR taught economics at the University of Chattanooga to a class of 150 freshman war veterans.

During the 1930s and early 1940s MRR helped organize Planned Parenthood groups at the local and state levels, and in 1938 organized a speaking tour for Margaret Sanger in Tennessee . She was a very outspoken proponent of women's participation in politics. MRR and Dorothy Stafford were responsible for reviving the Tennessee League of Women Voters (LWV), which had disbanded in 1920 after women received the vote. She held offices in the LWV at the local, state, and national levels (president, Tennessee LWV, 1945-46; Nashville LWV, 1946-47), where she worked for better housing and health services, children's issues, and for tax equalization and reform of the Tennessee constitution.

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