page_title: Madeline McDowell Breckinridge
section_title: Civic activities
hierarchical_section_title: Madeline McDowell Breckinridge / Biography / Civic activities
caption_attribution_description: English: From portrait at Ashland, the Henry Clay Estate. Photograph by Wendy Bright-Levy, Ashland the Henry Clay Estate.
context_page_description: Madeline McDowell Breckinridge was an American leader of the women's suffrage movement in Kentucky. She married Desha Breckinridge, editor of the Lexington Herald, which advocated women's rights, and she lived to see the women of Kentucky vote for the first time in the presidential election of 1920. She also initiated progressive reforms for compulsory school attendance and child labor. She founded many civic organizations, notably the Kentucky Association for the Prevention and Treatment of Tuberculosis, an affliction from which she had personally suffered. She led efforts to implement model schools for children and adults, parks and recreation facilities, and manual training programs.
  In their book, A New History of Kentucky, Lowell H. Harrison and James C. Klotter, state that Breckinridge was the most influential woman in the state. She was named one of the Kentucky Women Remembered in 1996 and her portrait is permanently displayed at the state capitol.
context_section_description: She organized a social settlement at Proctor, Kentucky's Episcopal mission with the Gleaners of Christ Church Episcopal from 1899 to 1900. In 1900, she helped found the Lexington Civic League, which created public kindergartens, parks, and recreational opportunities for children, and she also helped found the relief organization, Associated Charities, that year. Breckenridge also worked to have laws enacted regarding child labor, compulsory school attendance, a development of a juvenile justice system in the state (law passed in 1906). She also worked to introduce manual training of domestic science and carpentry in schools, which was funded by the board of education beginning in 1907. Through the efforts of the Lexington Civic League, she founded a social settlement, similar to Chicago's Hull House, named the Lincoln School for Robert Todd Lincoln who donated $30,000 towards the building cost. The school, which opened in 1912, had classrooms for children's day and adult's night classes, swimming pools, gymnasium, a laundry, carpenter shop, cannery, and a community assembly hall. It served poor Lexington residents, including an influx of Irish immigrants, many of whom were illiterate.
  Breckinridge began working on finding ways to provide services for individuals with tuberculosis in Lexington in 1905, first with the development of a free clinic. She led the efforts within the Associated Charities and Civic League. She founded the Kentucky Association for the Prevention and Treatment of Tuberculosis in 1912, helped establish the Blue Grass Sanitarium in Lexington, by also working with the Fayette County Tuberculosis Association, and served on the state commission until 1916. 
  Breckinridge chaired the legislative committee of the Kentucky Federation of Women's Clubs in 1908, 1910, and 1912. She worked hard, among other things, in this role to restore the rights of Kentucky women to vote in school board elections even before the 19th Amendment granted full suffrage.
caption: Dixie Selden, Madeline McDowell Breckinridge, 1920, Ashland, The Henry Clay Estate, Lexington, Kentucky
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot A95", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "100", "Image YResolution": "100", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2007:02:25 18:45:39", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS Windows", "Image ExifOffset": "320", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1230", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5517", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/8", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:02:25 05:02:54", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:02:25 05:02:54", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "3", "EXIF ApertureValue": "95/32", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "95/32", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "125/16", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "692", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "867", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "1944", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "2592", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1080", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "486000/53", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "2592000/283", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}