1321 South Fourth Street (Alice Barbee Castleman)
Residence of Alice Barbee Castleman from 1891-1907
Alice Osmond Barbee Castleman was born in Louisville at her parents’ home at Sixth and Walnut Streets in 1842. Her father, John Barbee, was a member of the Know-Nothing Party and was Mayor of Louisville during Bloody Monday, the uprising against Irish and German immigrants in 1855. She married John Breckinridge Castleman, a prominent businessman and civic leader who supported his wife both financially and emotionally in her battle to secure voting rights for all women and was an early member of the Louisville Equal Rights Association alongside his wife.
Alice was a philanthropist and progressive, cultured and liberal in her views. She was a member of the Board of Lady Managers of the Columbian Exposition in Chicago 1893. She was a charter member of the Woman’s Club of Louisville and served as first vice president in 1897 and chair of the drama committee, as well as many other roles. The Club fought to have the city provide a jail matron for female residents, and Alice was reported as being directly responsible for that successful effort. She also was a member of the Woman’s Auxiliary of the Board of Missions, Foreign and Domestic. She was President of the Outdoor League, President of the Louisville Training School for Nurses, and on the board of the Business Woman’s Club, along with being an active member of Christ Church.
Beyond charity work, Alice Castleman was a leader in suffrage issues, at both the State and local level. She served as President of the Kentucky Equal Rights Association (KERA) in 1910 and 1911. She was President of the Louisville Suffrage Association and was personally responsible for bringing the annual meeting of the National Suffrage Association to Louisville in 1911 by securing the invitation, location, and financing. She was Chair of the KERA Suffrage Parade which was part of the Perry Centennial Parade in 1913 in Louisville. The Suffrage Parade featured 1000 women dressed in white and carrying suffrage related banners led by Alice Castleman in her carriage. In addition, she was chair of the six delegates from KERA who went to Washington D.C. to lobby Congress for the passage of the “Susan B. Anthony Amendment” which became the 19th Amendment.
Given her prominence in the State of Kentucky’s efforts for Women’s Suffrage, Alice Castleman was one of the select women present at the signing of the Kentucky ratification ceremony on January 6, 1920. Once this became law, Alice continued to work politically. She was a member of the Kentucky Democratic Party General Committee and was chosen as one of only seventeen women delegates to the Democratic National Convention at San Francisco in 1920. Alice Barbee Castleman passed away in 1926.