The crowd inside the Tennessee State Capitol on Aug. 18, 1920 was colorful, to say the least.
Men, mostly state legislators, sported red roses pinned to the lapels of their black suits; women wearing suffragette white filled the visitor’s gallery, yellow roses pinned to their hats, their dresses, even carried in small bouquets.
The roses signified one’s position on whether women should be given the right to vote: yellow meant yes; red was a hard no.
The War of the Roses had come to Tennessee.
That day the state House of Representatives was voting on whether to ratify the 19th amendment to the US Constitution, giving women in America the right to vote. So far, 35 states had said yes to the amendment; Tennessee was the last chance the 70-plus year women’s suffrage movement had to ratify the groundbreaking law.
Most of the men on the House floor wore red roses, including 24-year-old Harry Burn, son of Fedd Burn of Niota, Tenn. He had long supported ratification, but pressure from party leaders and anti-suffragists convinced him otherwise.
The state Senate had already voted for ratification, but after two votes to table the measure, the House of Representatives was tied. So the speaker called the roll, and Harry stood to record his vote. In his pocket, unknown to anyone but him, was a letter from his mother, Febb.
That letter turned out to be the suffragists’ secret weapon. In it, Febb asked her son to be “a good boy” and vote yes, and as his name was called Harry did what he was told. Tennessee granted women the right to vote.
The stunned chamber erupted. According to reports from that day Harry, fearing for his life, immediately ran out of the room and up to the top of the building to wait for everyone to leave. The next day, he gave a speech on the floor, defending his vote.
“I believe we had a moral and legal right to ratify,” he said. “I know that a mother’s advice is always safest for a boy to follow. And my mother wanted me to vote for ratification.”
Less than a year later, Febb was the first of 900 women in her county to register to vote, filling out a registration card that still referred to voters as he, him and sir. The state board of elections didn’t revise the cards for several years.
Harry’s vote was historic, but his views reflect the influence his mother’s life had on his choice.
Phoebe “Febb” Ensminger Burn was born in 1873 near Niota, a small eastern Tennessee town at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains. Her father was a Confederate war veteran but she ended up graduating from U.S. Grant Memorial University (now Tennessee Wesleyan University), at the time one of the few coed colleges in the country.
She married James L. Burns, and together they had four children. (Harry was the oldest, because of course he was.) Her husband managed the local train depot while Febb taught school; in 1902 James founded the Crescent Sock Company, employing dozens of local workers.
In 1916 James died from typhoid fever, and Febb stopped teaching to run the family farm and hosiery mill. She worked alongside the men, but also read three newspapers a day and followed the suffragist movement closely. She believed women should be allowed to vote and to own property just like men, and she shared her views with her son.
She mailed her famous letter on July 11, 1920, unsure of what side Harry would take on ratification.
“Hurrah and vote for Suffrage and don’t keep them in doubt,” she wrote. “I’ve been watching to see how you stood but have not seen anything yet … Don’t forget to be a good boy and help Mrs. ‘Thomas Catt’ with her “Rats.” (Febb’s quip is in reference to Carrie Chapman Catt, a well-known and popular leader of the suffrage movement, and her supporters.)
Febb and Harry enjoyed minor celebrity after his vote, and their story endures to this day. In 2018, Tennessee designated August 18 as Febb Burn Day, and a memorial statue of Febb with her hand on Harry’s shoulder sits in downtown Knoxville, a gift of the local Suffrage Coalition.
The family business is also making history. Now the oldest continuously operating sock mill in the country, Crescent Sock Company is for the first time in its history a women-owned business, run by four of Febb’s great granddaughters.
This year they opened Febb’s Boutique, a special line of socks imprinted with yellow roses as tribute to the 19th Amendment’s centennial. If you’re so inclined, you can pick up a pair of history here.