Patti Ruffner Jacobs

Pattie Ruffner Jacobs (sometimes Patti, Patty, or Mrs. Solon Harold Jacobs) was an American women's suffragist from Birmingham, Alabama. She was inducted into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame in 1978.

Pattie Ruffner was born in 1875 in West Virginia, the daughter of salt merchant Lewis Ruffner. She was educated at Ward's Seminary in Nashville, Tennessee, but was unable to continue her studies during the economic crisis of the 1890s. Her parents' marriage dissolved in that period and Pattie moved with her mother to Birmingham to stay with an older sister's family.

Ruffner married Birmingham businessman Solon Jacobs and took advantage of his means to travel and to enroll in voice classes in New York City. Over time, she became more politically active in the swirl of Progressivism which was reshaping Birmingham as a New South city of industry. She joined the fight against child labor, convict leasing, and prostitution which were all endemic in the Birmingham District. She was an active member of the Salvation Army and the Jefferson County Anti-Tuberculosis Association. Her increasing national standing led to her participation in the campaign for the sale of Liberty Bonds during World War I.

It was after several failed efforts toward improving public schools that Jacobs concluded that women's suffrage was necessary in order to achieve social reforms through the political process. She founded the Birmingham Equal Suffrace Association in 1910, followed by the Alabama Equal Suffrage Association a year later. In 1913, Jacobs spoke on behalf of Southern women's suffragists at the Annual Convention of the National Woman Suffrage Association in Washington D. C..

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