Hayden Dunbar

Nov. 6, 2025 12:23pm ET

KEY POINTS:

• Local developer Tim Hill, Hatcher-Hill Properties co-founder and president, gave $500,000 to help the planned Women's Suffrage Museum acquire another Gay Street building.
• That building is under contract now, and a new fundraising campaign has begun.
• The museum will highlight East Tennessee's role in ratifying the 19th Amendment, celebrating figures such as Lizzie Crozier French and Harry T. Burn.

The South is often dismissed as a place that's slow to change, Wanda Sobieski acknowledges. But what those who discount the region might not know is that Tennessee played a critical role in the revolutionary fight for women's right to vote.

Knoxville's Women's Suffrage Museum will tell the world that story, and more space than originally planned will allow the historic narrative to go even deeper.

Following an initial fundraising campaign of $2 million, a home for the museum has been secured downtown with the purchase of 706 S. Gay St. The project is growing even more thanks to a generous donation, according to an Nov. 6 announcement by the Suffrage Coalition, the nonprofit behind the museum.

Local developer Tim Hill, Hatcher-Hill Properties co-founder and president, gave $500,000 on behalf of the company to help the museum acquire adjacent property at 708 S. Gay St. Now the Suffrage Coalition is launching a second fundraising campaign with a remaining goal of $2.4 million to complete the purchase of the second building and restore it.

The expansion of the floor plan will allow the nonprofit to design a bigger and more robust experience to share how women's suffrage was ratified and Tennessee's role in advancing the movement.

"It will give us much more of an opportunity to do what we intend to do, which is not have this be a museum of artifacts and storyboards only, but to have it be a real experience where people can get an idea of what it really felt like to be involved in this struggle," said Sobieski, who is president of the Suffrage Coalition.

Donations can be made online at WomensSuffrageMuseum.org or mailed to P.O. Box 14322, Knoxville, TN 37914.

More space means complexities of the movement will be shared

The second building is under contract now, Sobieski said. When the project is finished − it's scheduled to open in 2028 − it will be the largest women's suffrage museum in the U.S., with between 20,000 and 25,000 square feet of space.

"The truth of the matter is, this is a story that's spanned more than 72 years, but a minimum of 72 years," Sobieski said, referencing the movement from its birth at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 to the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution in 1920. "And that's a lot of story. And it will be wonderful to have enough space to really tell it right."

That means zooming out to highlight the national events of women's suffrage as well as highlighting Tennessee's specific role. Sobieski said the coalition also plans to go more in depth about the experiences of women of color during this time and their contributions to advocate for a "controversial cultural political issue," particularly during an era when racial divides still ran deep.

"The way people dealt with the issues and felt about the issues over time varied a lot depending on their place in society, their economic class, their race, their opportunities for citizenship made a difference," Sobieski said. "So it'll be really nice to be able to tell the stories of as many of those people as we possibly can."

At a media event Nov. 6, a crowd gathered at the site of the museum. The two women who have held the role of mayor in Knoxville, Indya Kincannon and Madeline Rogero, both spoke, alongside other advocates for the project. Audience members wore white dresses, sashes and hats, many of which were adorned with the yellow rose, a symbol of women's suffrage.

A banner showing concept art for the future museum's exterior was released from the top of the building, revealing plans to add purple and gold accents, as well as a balcony to the facade.

What will be in the Women's Suffrage Museum?

The museum will feature artifacts from the Suffrage Coalition's collection of over 1,000 items, and is planned as an experiential destination with Mary Kellogg-Joslyn serving as executive producer and director of museum development. She's well suited to bring the museum's elements to life as the co-founder and former co-owner of the Titanic Museum Attraction, which has a location in Pigeon Forge and is known for its hands-on setup.

The suffrage museum also will focus on civics education and other women's issues, Sobieski said.

One woman who will be spotlighted in the future exhibits is Knoxville suffragist Lizzie Crozier French, who is honored in one of the coalition's memorials alongside other state suffrage leaders Anne Dallas Dudley and Elizabeth Avery Meriwether.

French was a fierce advocate for women's right to vote as an organizer of the Knoxville Equal Suffrage Association, president of the Tennessee Equal Suffrage Association and the Tennessee Federation of Women’s Clubs and state chair of the National Woman’s Party, according to TennesseeEncyclopedia.net.

Crozier's great-great-granddaughter Beverly Hoyt lives in Birmingham, Alabama, and told Knox News she'd like to travel to Knoxville with her family to see the museum when it opens.

"It's cool that we have strong women in our family. I think that is something that has been passed down, you know, thinking women with opinions, which is not always appreciated even today," Hoyt said. "So, I do love that about our family history, that she had something she thought was worth fighting for − and she did."

East Tennessee is 'where suffrage came of age'

As the site of the Seneca Falls Convention, upstate New York tends to get the credit as the birthplace of women's rights, but Sobieski likes to call East Tennessee the place where suffrage came of age.

That's because of the pivotal role East Tennessee played in securing the vote for women.

"We're where that final vote came from that made it a reality and not just a dream," Sobieski told Knox News in an earlier conversation.

By August 1920, 35 states had ratified the 19th Amendment, which would give women the right to vote. One more state's support was needed to reach the majority, and that month, the Tennessee General Assembly convened to vote, according to the National Park Service website.

The decision came down to the stance of young Harry T. Burn, from Niota, about an hour outside of Knoxville. He entered the General Assembly chamber sporting the anti-suffragist red rose on his lapel, but Burn ultimately voted in favor of ratification after a letter from his mother, Febb Burn, urged him to "be a good boy" and support women's right to vote.

And with that, three-quarters of the U.S. had passed the 19th Amendment, and Tennessee, a rural Southern state, cinched women's right to vote.

At the Nov. 6 event on Gay Street, Febb Burn's descendent Rebecca “Becca” Ensminger McCombs spoke emotionally about what her ancestor's role and the coalition's project mean to her.

"There is great importance in the stories that we tell. The stories that we choose to pass down, that we honor and that we choose to remember," she said.

"There is also great importance in the stories that we choose to hear. Febb had something to say, and Harry heard her. Something that I love about this museum is that it will hold many stories, some famous, some quiet. It will be a place to hear and to learn. A place that tells our sons and daughters, your voice matters. Use it well, but also listen."

Later, Sobieski stood alongside Kellogg-Joslyn in front of the Gay Street buildings that will soon be home to the museum. An excited audience watched as the two women each donned a hardhat.

"I think it's time to get to work," Sobieski said.

Hayden Dunbar is the storyteller reporter. Email: hayden.dunbar@knoxnews.com. Instagram: @knoxstoryteller.

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