Missouri T.B. Hanna: Edmonds Pioneer, Real Estate Developer, Journalist, Champion of Women’s Suffrage

Destined to make a lasting mark on the fledgling mill town of Edmonds, Missouri T.B. Hanna arrived here in 1904 from Spokane Falls, where she had earned a reputation as a successful and shrewd land developer.

Almost immediately after arriving, she purchased five acres of land on which she would build her home. Located on a low bluff above Puget Sound just north of today’s Caspers Street, the tract became known as Hanna Park. She offered several lots for sale, advertising that they offered “high upland, tide lands, good views, fine soil, clam beds and a bathing beach.” The Hanna Park neighborhood remains to this day a pleasant enclave, offering proximity to downtown Edmonds with the feel of country living.

Within a year of her arrival, Hanna purchased the Edmonds Review newspaper. She had no prior journalism experience, yet plunged into the newspaper business with her signature energy, focus and tenacity.

Her early editorials set out her philosophy and reasons for running the paper, and directly answered those who would criticize her for entering an endeavor traditionally the province of men.

“We think we have sufficient nerve to run a local paper,” she wrote, further admonishing readers to “help it along, read it, criticize and help pay for it, but don’t kill it.”

In 1906, Hanna joined with her fellow newspaper publishers and was among the founding members of the Snohomish County Press Association, some meetings of which she hosted in her office.  Interestingly, when the Edmonds Chamber of Commerce was formed the next year, the 50 initial members were all male; newspaper publisher Hanna was not among them.

In 1907 a new newspaper, the Tribune, began publishing in competition with the Review. The Tribune passed through several hands, and was purchased in 1910 by William Schumacher, local banker and merchant. With her interests turning more and more to the movement for women’s suffrage and reasoning that the town could not support two newspapers, Hanna sold her paper to Schumacher, who rechristened it the Tribune-Review. The Tribune-Review would go on to be the primary chronicler of Edmonds and its people for the next 70 years. (See Patch article )

During her years at the Review, Hanna became increasingly involved in the movement for women’s suffrage. In October 1909, the first issue of Hanna’s monthly journal Votes for Women was released. Published under the auspices of the Washington Equal Suffrage Association, it listed "Mrs. M. T. B. Hanna" as editor and proprietor. With the equal suffrage amendment due to be put to the electorate in November 1910, the magazine pledged to report on “the struggle being made throughout the world to secure woman her political rights.”

As the months passed leading to the critical vote, Votes for Women reported on the progress of the suffrage movement in Washington and nationwide. It carried editorials by prominent men and women, cartoons, and advertising from businesses that supported the movement. When the vote finally came, the all-male electorate approved women’s suffrage 52,000 votes for, 30,000 against. In the next issue of Votes for Women, Hanna proudly proclaimed it “The Magazine That Won Equal Suffrage In Washington.”

Missouri Hanna continued to live in Edmonds and remained active in progressive politics. She died at “Fern Rest,” her home in Hanna Park, on June 14, 1926.

Learn more about Ms. Hanna and the Washington State women's suffrage movement at History Link and the Women's Legacy Project of Snohomish County. See the celebratory December 1910 issue of Votes for Women here.