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It was a long time coming. As early as 1869, the Council of Censors was urging that women be given the right to vote in Vermont. "After abolishing human slavery, the next great conquest of the United States over wrong and error will be to take woman from the feet of man and place her by his side."

The first bill seeking to give women the right to vote in town meeting was introduced in the Vermont House in 1884. It finally passed in 1917, making Vermont the first New England state to pass a municipal suffrage bill.

Then in 1919 the House and Senate passed a suffrage bill, but Gov. Percival Clement vetoed it. The following year, advocates for suffrage asked the governor to convene a special session of the Legislature so Vermont could become the 36th state to ratify the 19th amendment, giving women the right to vote. Clement refused. But Tennessee endorsed the amendment in time for Edna Beard to win election that fall to the Vermont House.

One newspaper account said that when the 1921 House convened, Beard took House seat No. 145. "For a long time, no mere man had the courage to select seat number 146, which adjoins her. The seat stood vacant for over an hour until Horatio E. Luce of Pomfret took the dare of his fellow members and sat down beside Miss Beard amid a storm of laughter and applause."