How to Make Your Mother Proud
History is rife with examples of women who effected change, then vanished into obscurity. When it comes to the story of how the 19th Amendment became a reality—irony be damned—it’s no different.
In downtown Knoxville, Tenn., on the corner of Clinch Avenue and Market Square, a stone’s throw from what used to be the federal courthouse, a statue of a man and a woman will occasionally attract the attention of a curious pedestrian.
The man is sitting on a chair, his posture relaxed. He’s clad in a suit and tie. The woman stands next to him, one of her hands perched, somewhat protectively, on his shoulder; the other clasping a small bouquet of flowers. Both share a look of stern resolve.
Her name is Febb. His name is Harry. A mother and son who together, 104 years ago this month, changed American history.
Febb—or Phoebe Ensminger Burn—was a woman ahead of her time. She was born in 1873 near Niota, Tenn., but little is known about her childhood. What we do know is that she graduated from U.S. Grant Memorial University—now Tennessee Wesleyan—at a time when academia was a man’s domain and not something to be squandered on the meek minds of the fairer sex.
She read vociferously—three newspapers a day, by some accounts—and harbored a deep and constant resentment about the fact that society considered her intellect and opinions to be inferior to those of a man.
As a young woman, despite being well-versed in the political feuds and international relations of the day, Febb didn’t have the right to vote.
After college, she worked as a teacher and married James Lafayette Burn, a stationmaster. Together the pair ran the family farm and had four children, but in 1916 James died of typhoid fever, leaving Febb to raise three of their children alone. A daughter, Sara, had died two years earlier.
Mourning the losses, Febb dedicated her life to being a homemaker and raising children. But it wasn’t just any child she was raising. For it was her oldest son Harry T. Burn—immortalized by the Burn Memorial in a buzzy part of Knoxville—who would end up casting the deciding vote that led to the ratification of the 19th Amendment, ending suffragists’ long crusade that won women the right to vote.
Obscured by History
History is rife with examples of women who effected change and then vanished into obscurity, and when it comes to the story of how the 19th Amendment became a reality—irony be damned—it’s no different.
