Mary Elliott Flanery

Mary Elliott Flanery (April 27, 1867 – July 19, 1933) was an American progressive era social reformer, suffragist, politician, and journalist who is best remembered as the first women elected to the Kentucky General Assembly and first women elected to a state legislature south of the Mason–Dixon line. Flanery was an advocate for equal rights for women, and actively worked to pass legislation that would give women the right to vote.

Mary Elliott, daughter of Benjamin Franklin Elliott and Nancy (Kegley) Elliott, was born April 27, 1867 in a part of Carter County, Kentucky that would later become Elliott County, Kentucky. After completing her schooling at University of Charleston in West Virginia and the University of Kentucky, she was a public school teacher.

Mary married William "Harvey" Flanery on June 28, 1893, and moved with him to Ann Arbor, Michigan. The Flanery family moved to Pikeville, Kentucky in 1896 for Harvey to work for Northern Coal and Coke as an attorney.

Harvey and Mary had five children together; Sue, Merle, Dawn, Dew, and John.

While residing in Pikeville, Mary Flanery began a career as a writer. From 1904 until 1926, she worked as a journalist for the Ashland Daily Independent. She wrote a column called "Impressions of Kentucky's Legislature," and she advocated for legislation as a means for social reform.

Flanery "discovered" female African-American poet Effie Waller Smith, who live and worked in Pike County, Kentucky.

Flanery was a member of the Kentucky Equal Right Association, and actively worked for women to have the right to vote. She worked for to improve the lives of women through reform of suffrage, marriage, and divorce laws.

After women gained suffrage in Kentucky, in 1921, Flanery ran as the Democratic party candidate for a seat in the Kentucky House of Representative from the 89th District representing Boyd County, Kentucky and won by a 250-vote margin. When Flanery took her seat in the lower house of the General Assembly in January 1922, she was the first female state legislator elected in Kentucky and the first female legislator elected south of the Mason–Dixon line.

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