Finding aid for the Olive A. Colton Papers

Biography of Olive A. Colton

Colton was a founder of Toledo's League of Women Voters in 1921, a member of the National Woman's Party in the 1930s, and served as a delegate to Carrie Chapman Catt's Woman's Centennial Congress in 1940.

Olive A. Colton was born in Toledo in 1873 and died there in 1972. She was the daughter of Abram W. Colton (1834-1909), president and general manager of the Lake Erie Transportation Company and officer of other transportation firms, and Catherine (Van Home) Colton, a descendant of the prominent Knickerbocker family of New York. Her only sister, Cornelia, wife of E. Griswold Hollister, was a leader in Republican politics and the musical life of Toledo.

Olive Colton attended the Smead School for Girls, majoring in history, and for many years remained active in the Smead School Associations. She traveled in Europe frequently and developed an extensive collection of postcards. One of her early interests was in the “romance of royalty,” the title of her first published work (1908). Her interest in woman suffrage appears to date from the beginning of her friendship with Amy G. Maher in the 1910s.

A founder of the League of Women Voters of Toledo in 1921, she served as president twice and in 1930 was elected honorary president for life. She appears to have been a member of the National Woman’s Party during the 1930s. She participated in Carrie Chapman Catt’s National Committee on the Cause and Cure of War’s conferences in Washington from 1925 to 1933. She was also a delegate to Mrs. Catt’s Woman’s Centennial Congress in 1940.

As a public speaker, Miss Colton gave talks for the Child and Family Agency and during World War II, for the Toledo chapter of the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies.

During the late 1940s, she made donations to Albert Einstein’s Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists, to the American Association for the United Nations, the Committee for the Marshall Plan, and to other causes.

Miss Colton’s essays display a variety of intellectual interests: peace, women’s suffrage and rights, and Emerson and his association with the Berkshire Mountain region. She remained a Progressive long after the Progressive Era. In her old age, her political philosophy remained to the left of center.

Scope and Content

Olive Colton was best known as a suffragist and reformer. Her personal interests, however, were rather varied: travel, postcard and autograph collecting, the opera and theater, royalty, Emerson, besides women’s and other social issues. This collection documents those interests and activities.

Postcards form approximately two-thirds of the content of the collection. These date from the 1890s to the 1950s and represent the usual local attractions, such as buildings and landscapes, from all over Europe and America, as well as a number of works of art. A number of early-2Oth-century postcards depict European royalty. Many were sent to Miss Colton by her correspondents, but the notes on them generally contain little substantive information. The scrapbooks are filled with postcards and clippings related to travel. Of interest to researchers of life in 19th-century Toledo are Miss Colton’s memoir of her childhood, the narrative sketch of her family, and the photographs of her early homes. The ephemera in the collection, such as political handbills, programs, ribbons, also include several items of interest. Researchers will probably be drawn to this collection primarily because of Miss Colton’s suffragist activities. However, they will find little material generated before 1919 to document her activities in this area. Her correspondence dates mainly from the 1920s to the 1940s. Prominent correspondents include Carrie Chapman Catt, Florence E. Allen, Mrs. Brand Whitlock, and Edith Cunningham. It is useful in documenting Miss Colton’s positions on legislative issues, her choice of public speakers, her philanthropy, and her activity in organizations under the leadership of Carrie Chapman Catt. The collection does contain a variety of material relating to Mrs. Catt: articles written by her, reports of the Carrie Chapman Catt Memorial Fund, and reports of the Conferences on the Cause and Cure of War, which was headed by Mrs. Catt. Finally, the collection has material useful for the study of the League of Women Voters of Toledo.

Statement of Arrangement

Indexing Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.

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Preferred Citation

"[Collection Name], Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections, University of Toledo Libraries"