The physician and suffragist Lovejoy promoted the idea of woman voters as agents of public health. President of the Portland Board of Health from 1907, she believed that woman suffrage was the key to creating safer and healthier communities. This was a subject close to home for Lovejoy, who lost both her son and first husband to disease.

 

Lovejoy and other woman physicians were a powerful voice in local politics and at the time around 8 percent of all physicians in Oregon were women – over double the national average. Lovejoy worked closely with these women and many other organizations, building a strong coalition to promote radical notions of equal suffrage as a remedy for social ills. She also opposed Abigail Scott Duniway’s effort to create a unified suffrage organization. Lovejoy judged that a multi-headed approach could target specific audiences and avoid the pitfalls of autocratic leadership.

Lovejoy’s efforts culminated in 1911 with her creation of the Everybody’s Equal Suffrage League. It was open to all races and religions, men and women, rich or poor. Under Lovejoy’s direction, the league worked hand-in-hand with other suffrage groups in a statewide mass-media campaign that took Oregon by storm in 1912. She went on tour around the state, promoting her vision of equality and public safety in a movement that, according to Lovejoy, had “neither head nor tail” though she was certainly its standard bearer. Following her success in Oregon, Lovejoy continued to practice medicine, presiding over several bodies while advocating for the health and well-being of women and children for another fifty years.