YAKIMA, Wash. -- Women marched for the right to vote a century ago in cities throughout Washington state, and the dusty streets of Yakima were no exception.

The movement, which is celebrated in a Yakima Valley Museum exhibit opening Friday, was focused in population centers like Seattle and Spokane. But Yakima saw its share of the action in the years leading up to the 1910 election giving women in Washington the vote. It had its own leading suffragist in schoolteacher Martha Beck, and it had its own semi-underground movement complete with "pink tea" parties where women met to organize.

"They used it as a guise to strategize for suffrage," said Peggy Ludwick, who oversaw the women's history curriculum for Yakima schools for 20 years and is one of the coordinators of Yakima's suffrage centennial events. "It was an approved gathering of women who weren't thought of as rabble-rousers."

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The local suffragists weren't alone. There was hard-drinking, cigar-chomping silver mine owner Mae Arkwright Hutton in Spokane, the comparatively genteel Emma Smith DeVoe in Seattle and newspaper editor Abigail Scott Duniway in Oregon. All contributed to the fight for suffrage in Washington, as did famous suffragists from elsewhere in the country. They viewed Washington -- the fifth state to give women the vote -- as a key step in building momentum for the national suffrage movement.

Susan B. Anthony visited Yakima, as did Duniway, DeVoe and a host of other famous suffragists. Washington state's approval occurred 10 years before the 19th Amendment was ratified and added to the U.S. Constitution, prohibiting any state from denying a citizen the right to vote on the basis of sex.

"That's one of the reasons Susan B. Anthony was even interested in coming to the Northwest," Ludwick said.

Dr. Anna Shaw, president of the National Suffrage Association, also spoke in Yakima, as recounted in the Kennewick Courier in April 1910: "I have never thought that men meant to be unfair or unjust. But the laws are unfair. The laws are unjust."

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Indeed, there were many men involved in the suffrage movement and many women against it, as evidenced in the Sept. 26, 1910, North Yakima Herald. The paper, under the headline "Many Women Oppose Ballot," quoted an anti-suffrage women's group in Illinois: "The rallying cry of 'equal work, equal pay and equal political privileges,'" says its pamphlet, "is borrowed directly from socialism and is equally unsound."

The group went on to argue that women's equality would take women away from the home and "postpone marriage," and that the ballot box just wasn't a place for women: "It is our fathers, brothers, husbands and sons who represent us at the ballot box. Our fathers and our brothers love us; our husbands are our choice and one with us; our sons are what we make them.

"We are content that they represent us in the corn field, on the battle field, and at the ballot box, and we them in the school room, at the fireside and at the cradle, believing our representation even at the ballot box to be thus more full and impartial than it would be were the views of the few who wish suffrage adopted."

Such was the editorial stance of the Herald and of the competing Yakima Republic. When suffrage was approved by Washington voters in November 1910, the newspapers didn't even report it.

Yakima Valley Museum curator David Lynx discovered that dearth of news coverage while preparing the museum exhibit.

"I thought, 'There's got to be something in here,' because I wanted to use it," he said. "I couldn't find it. It was amazing. There was just nothing about it."

Let the record show, however, that the general public in Yakima County was more progressive than its newspapers. While men statewide approved the measure with 64 percent support, men in Yakima County approved it with 68 percent of the vote -- 1,633 votes to 780.

Now, a century later, Yakima's celebration of the centennial is "the best in the state," according to Yakima County Auditor Corky Mattingly, who organized it. It began in January, with "Women Artists: Where We Are Now" at the Larson Gallery and will continue through the spring with events at Yakima Valley Community College, the museum, Allied Arts of Yakima and the Yakima Convention Center.

The biggest single element is the "Women's Votes, Women's Voices" museum exhibit opening Friday. Compiled by the Washington State Historical Society, the Washington Women's History Consortium and the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture in Spokane, the exhibit features interactive elements, thoroughly researched texts and historical artifacts.

Having already been displayed in Tacoma and Wenatchee, the exhibit arrived in Yakima late last month. It took two semitrucks to deliver.

"There's so much, that you can't cover the whole thing when you're there the first time," said Mattingly, who in addition to her role as auditor is president of the Washington Women's History Consortium.

Among the treasures on display are Susan B. Anthony's eyeglasses, Abigail Scott Duniway's typewriter and scores of historical photos. More modern pieces include the space suit worn by pioneering female astronaut Bonnie Dunbar of Sunnyside and a women's letter jacket commemorating the 1987 decision in Blair vs. Washington State University, the case that challenged the state's discriminatory funding of female athletics. The lead plaintiff in that case was Karen Blair, now Karen Troianello, letters editor at the Herald-Republic.

Mattingly, Ludwick and a group of supporters will dress in turn-of-the-20th-century style for the exhibit opening Friday. They hope others will join them in vintage clothes, re-creating a scene from the streets of Yakima 100 years ago.

"We're going to do a little march around the museum," Mattingly said.

* Pat Muir can be reached at 509-577-7693 or pmuir@yakimaherald.com.

If you go

WHAT: "Women's Votes, Women's Voices" exhibit.

WHERE: Yakima Valley Museum, 2105 Tieton Drive.

WHEN: Opens Friday with A reception from 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m., including a showing of "Iron Jawed Angels." The exhibit runs until June 20.

ONLINE: www.yakimavalleymuseum.org.