Mary Kachi Cassinelli opened Dandelion Botanical Company, a natural apothecary shop, at the age of 26 and remembers early on the men in her life telling her how to run her business. But, the successful Ballard business owner of 14 years feels that it was her unique skill set and experiences as a woman that helped her run her business intuitively.

“[This centennial] is a huge stride," said Cassinelli. "It’s hard to imagine a world where we wouldn’t have these rights. I think I would have been back there with them. I would have been one of the marchers.”

This year, Washington, the fifth state in the Union to grant women the right to vote, celebrates the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage.

The movement was rooted in communities throughout the state. Among them was Ballard, a neighborhood originally supported by such labor-centric industries as fishing, boat building and lumber.

“They would all come into the store and were so fearless,” said Cassinelli of the other female business owners in the area when she opened her store. “You think that you have to know how to do things, and that you already have to have all your bricks in line – to learn from the male model. But, we as women can support each other, admitting that we don’t know what we’re doing. [Those women] were really important to me gaining my footing back then.”

Kimberly Jacobsen, volunteer coordinator and staff member of the Museum of History and Industry, said while the suffrage victory came in a unanimous, state-wide vote, the fight for women’s suffrage began half a century earlier.

In honor of the historical milestone, the museum has created the Women’s Votes, Women’s Voices exhibit.

“In more rural areas, the feeling was that women could maintain their feminine qualities and still be a mother and wife and vote – in fact, that was capitalized on," said Jacobsen "At the time, Washington was full of a lot of small towns with small town justice. There was a lot of trouble and a lot of rowdiness, so women were seen as these harborers of morality in some ways.”

Jacobsen described the suffrage movement as the perfect storm. A year before women’s rights were put to a vote, the Alaskan Yukon Pacific Exposition brought thousands to the Washington for the regional world’s fair.

The surge of people allowed suffragists to advertise their cause by handing out pamphlets and flyers. Temperance and the greater accessibility of the printing press also helped propel the movement, Jacobsen said.

“Sometimes people of the younger generation look at women’s rights as something that’s already happened,” said Jacobsen. “But, to actually look at the history of how women got that right is inspiring and empowering for younger voters today, too. I think it’s important to remember the contributions of women in the past and to learn from their organizing techniques because they got here in a lot of different ways.”

The exhibit, open through October, features a number of mementos from the early 1900s, including copies of the Seneca Fall’s Declaration of Sentiments, a small typewriter used by an Oregon and Washington women to produce newspapers for the movement, ballot boxes, and a copy of the cookbook used by suffragists to exemplify that though women wanted greater representation they weren’t shedding their femininity.

“I have never felt that it was a disadvantage to be female,” said Ballard resident Jody Grage.

Grage will be 75 next January. She moved to Ballard in the late 70s and later became the owner of one of the first houses built in the neighborhood. The long-time resident was raised by a family that didn’t strongly distinguish between genders. She grew up skiing and worked as a mechanic later in life.

“I think Ballard has an advantage because women are not considered second-class citizens in Scandinavia," Grage said. "And, Norway has the highest percentage of women in government than any country.”

The Ballard Private Hospital, founded in 1907, also propelled women’s rights by providing a career and a role for women in the community.

The hospital originally offered emergency services to mill workers and their families but later expanded to include a maternity ward. After a series of male owners, the hospital shifted to female management in the early 1930s, at which point female nurses came to dominate the staff.

In 1935 tough economic times and competition from other business forced the Ballard Private Hospital to close.

Grage said Ballard’s eclectic immigrant community may have also furthered the suffragist movement because women had to be active members of society to support their families.

“When it was mostly guys here early on, it was only because they hadn’t sent for their wives and girlfriends,” she said. “But, that’s one of the primary things they worked toward. Pioneer communities readily saw the advantages of having women around, particularly when they didn’t have them. Civilization is definitely advanced by [the presence] of women.”