Sarah Platt-Decker
Sarah Sophia Chase Platt-Decker was an American suffragist. Mostly active in Denver, Colorado, she also served as the national president of the Federation of Associated Women's Clubs from 1904 to 1908.
Career
Platt-Decker was born Sarah Sophia Chase in McIndoe Falls, Vermont, in 1856. Her father was a strong prohibitionist and her mother was a descendant of the Adams political family. Her first husband, Charles Bond Harris, died after two years of marriage; the loss of her own possessions when her husband's estate was given to other members of his family inspired her to become an activist for women's rights.In 1884, Platt-Decker moved to Queens, New York, where she worked in children and orphans' welfare.
She married James Henry Platt Jr. (1837-1894), a widower, physician, former U.S. Congressman and director of the Mineola Children's Home in 1884. They moved to Denver, Colorado in 1887. The couple were active in Denver politics, and Platt-Decker led a relief effort for unemployed silver miners and spoke at a political rally during the Denver Depression of 1893. After James Platt's death in 1894, Platt-Decker became the first woman appointed to the Colorado Board of Pardons and served on the Board of Charities and Corrections from 1898 onwards.
Platt-Decker married a third time in 1899, to Westbrook Schoonmaker Decker, a Denver judge who died in 1903. Before his death, she helped to found the Denver Women's Club, served as its first president, and established the Denver Home for Dependent Children. In 1904, she was elected the national president of the General Federation of Women's Clubs. In her four years as president, she gave hundreds of speeches persuading members to take up the cause of women's suffrage.