Lenna Lowe Yost Historical Marker

Lenna Lowe was born in Basnettville to Jonathan S. and Columbia Bassnett Lowe on January 25, 1878. Her father died when Lowe was only eight, and her mother ran a store in Fairview while raising Lenna and her three siblings. She studied art at Ohio Northern University and then graduated from West Virginia Wesleyan College. In 1899 Lowe married Ellis Yost and a couple years later they moved to Morgantown for Ellis to study law.

Both Lenna and Ellis were quickly active in politics and reform. Ellis Yost won a seat in the state legislature in 1909 and 1913 where he campaigned for a prohibition law and Lenna Yost became state president for the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in 1908, using her position to support her husband’s prohibition efforts. She emerged into reform in the Progressive Era, when women were gaining new access to education and engaging in more civil reform efforts to influence both society and politics. While women did not have the right to vote or hold political office, they could do many things to support their causes such as organize strikes, form unions, use community organizations, and advocate for reforms related to women and children. However, they had to use the political power of men to achieve their goals since they could not vote. For the Yosts, Lenna Yost’s skills in staging community events in support of prohibition helped Ellis Yost pass the state prohibition law (House Bill No. 8) in 1913. This law made West Virginia a dry state and was one of the toughest prohibition laws in the nation.

In both the United States and West Virginia there was a connection between the Temperance Movement and the Women’s Suffrage Movement. While serving as president of the WCTU (1908-1918) Lenna Yost also became president of the West Virginia Equal Suffrage Association (WVESA) (a division of the NAWSA, National American Woman Suffrage Association) in 1916. From these positions Lenna Yost campaigned for both prohibition and the vote, arguing that women needed the vote to engage in their reform work and that women had special abilities and skills that they could bring to the table to better their communities, states, and nation. Yost led a campaign in 1916 for a state referendum on women’s suffrage in West Virginia, which was unsuccessful.

In 1919 the Yosts moved to Washington, D.C. briefly and Lenna Yost served as a national legislative representative for the WCTU and was the Washington correspondent for the organization’s journal (the Union Signal) until 1930. When the 19th Amendment was passed to the states for ratification in 1919, Lenna Yost returned to West Virginia to campaign for the state’s ratification. She served as the Chairman of the Ratification Committee in the WVESA and was instrumental in West Virginia being the 34th state to ratify the 19th Amendment in 1920.

After the campaign to ratify the 19th Amendment, Lenna Lowe Yost remained active in politics and achieved many “firsts” for women at the state and national levels. She continued to support temperance, advocated for better working conditions and education for women, and encouraged women taking an active role in politics. She encouraged women to not just vote, but to be actively engaged in party politics. She was a member of the Republican Party and worked in many roles supporting the party. In 1920 she chaired the Republican National Party Convention that nominated Warren G. Harding and she was the first woman to serve as a counting teller in a National Republican Convention (Chicago). She was the first women as a member of the Republican National Committee from WV, first woman in WV history to preside over a state convention in 1920, first woman chairman of any Republican State Convention, and first women to act as chair of the Committee on Platform and Politics for the Republican State Convention in 1924. Between 1930 and 1935 Lenna was director of the Women’s Division of the Republican National Committee.

In addition to her work with the Republican Party, Lenna Yost remained a strong advocate for temperance and women’s education. President William Harding appointed Lenna Yost as a delegate to the International Congress against Alcoholism in 1921 and 1923. Also in 1921, she was the first woman appointed to a state office in WV with her appointment to the WV Board of Education. She advocated for the improvement of women’s colleges to meet national standards and achieve recognition by the American Association of University Women. She also pushed for the construction of a building at West Virginia University specifically for female students engaging in physical activities—this would be Elizabeth Moore Hall and Yost managed many of the details of the location, construction, and furnishing of the building in 1925. The building was going to be named for her, but she denied that honor. In addition, she served on the West Virginia Wesleyan Board of Trustees (1927-1942) and received an honorary Doctor of Humanities from that institution (1929). In addition to her work in improving female education, she helped establish the juvenile court system in WV and promoted the construction of the federal penitentiary for women at Alderson in Greenbrier Co.

The Yosts lived at times in Fairview, Clarksburg, Morgantown, Huntington, as well as Washington, D.C., Virginia, and Michigan. Late in life, and after the 1962 death of Ellis, Lenna Yost moved to northern Virginia where she died in May 1972 at the age of 94.

Howe, Barbara J. “Lenna Lowe Yost.” The West Virginia Encyclopedia. Accessed September 23, 2020. https://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/1393.

“Lenna Lowe Yost.” West Virginia Archives and History. Accessed September 23, 2020. http://www.wvculture.org/history/archives/women/yo-st.html.

Rice, Connie Park. "Biography of Lenna Lowe Yost, 1878-1972." Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1890-1920. Accessed September 23, 2020. https://documents.alexanderstreet.com/d/1010596429.

Thurston, Karina G. “Lenna Lowe Yost, temperance, and the ratification of the woman suffrage amendment by West Virginia.” M.A. Thesis, West Virginia University, 2009.