NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — You may have heard this. As we head into the primaries, there are more women running for governor across the country than ever before. Perhaps one historic moment brings a recognition of another one.
It started here. I found a NewsChannel 5 story from 40-years-ago. 1986. It was Jane Eskind making campaign stops, running in the Democratic primary for Tennessee governor.
"I've been amazed by people asking whether Tennessee would elect a woman," Eskind told a listening crowd in the 1986 story.
This video got me wondering; how long have women been running for Tennessee governor?
The answer to that took me up to Jamestown.
At the Fentress County Historical Society, Kathy Stockton Williams was sorting through old newspaper articles about her Aunt Kate.
"She's a neat lady," Williams nodded. "I just wish I had known her earlier."
Williams' Aunt Kate is Kate Bradford Stockton. Stockton ran for Tennessee governor in 1936.
"You might say she was a women libber 40 years before her time!" Williams said.
Storyteller Peggy Sawyer has played Stockton many times. Sawyer describes a woman who in the 1920s set up a school on the family farm.
"This was a time in Fentress County the men didn't even have an elementary education," Williams said.
"It was a very poverty-stricken place," Sawyer added.
"[Aunt Kate] taught school free for the kids in the neighborhood," Williams continued.
Even before the campaign, Stockton was someone not interested in 1936 norms.
"She burnt everything she cooked!" Williams said. "She wanted to sit on the front porch and talk politics with the men instead of sit in the house with the women and talk babies and canning."
In 1936, the country was in the Great Depression. Stockton ran for Tennessee governor on the Socialist Party ticket. Some of her outlooks that would have been seen as radical then wouldn't sound that way 90-years-later.
"Educating women especially was important," Sawyer said.
"She had four daughters," Williams added. "They all had a college education."
"She wanted free school lunches," Sawyer continued. "She was a teacher. She said, 'I've seen too many children hungry. If you can't fill that belly, you can't fill that mind. She ran on a ticket of feed the children. I want old age pensions for people. I want the poll tax eliminated. I want crops to be insured. I want a nine-month salary for teachers."
Stockton traveled all over the state campaigning.
"She had to come back in a few days cause she had to can beans!" Williams said. "Her neighbors didn't appreciate what she was doing."
"She knew she wasn't going to win," Sawyer continued. "Some people made fun of her. She was willing to put herself out there to be ridiculed sometimes."
Kate Bradford Stockton ended up getting 3,786 votes. The winning candidate Gordon Browning got more than 332,000 votes.
"But Kate had the willingness to do bold things!" Sawyer said. "That's what I like best about Kate Bradford Stockton."
"This is a book that she wrote, The Little Red Hen," Williams said, holding up the book. "If you want something, you have to work for it."
Williams said growing up, her Aunt Kate really didn't talk about being a trailblazer in the Tennessee story.
"I'm proud she would stand up and fight for what she believed," Williams said. "She was a woman before her time."
Do you have a positive, good news story? You can email me at forrest.sanders@newschannel5.com.
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