Mabel Lloyd Ridgely

Mabel Lloyd Fisher was born in Washington, D. C., the daughter of Charles G. Fisher and Philippa Lloyd Fisher.

Ridgely's suffrage work included a term as president of the Delaware Equal Suffrage Association.^[1] She worked to persuade the state's General Assembly to ratify the 19th Amendment in 1920.^[2] The state Senate voted to ratify but the lower house did not.^[3] After suffrage was won, Ridgely was the first president of the state's League of Women Voters.^[4]

Ridgely had a particular interest in historical preservation. She served as president of the Public Archives Commission in Delaware, helped restore and preserve the Old State House^[5] and the John Dickinson House in Dover, and was a founder and organizer of Old Dover Days,^[6] a festival focused on local history.^[7] She also helped to found the Delaware State Archives. She wrote a history of her husband's family, What Them Befell (1949), about the Ridgelys in colonial Delaware, based on their surviving correspondence.^[8]

During World War I, Mabel Lloyd Ridgely chaired the Women's Liberty Loan Committee in Delaware.^[9]

Mabel Lloyd Fisher married Henry Ridgely, a judge, in 1893. They had a daughter, Philippa E. Ridgely (1894-1983). Mabel was widowed when Henry, who was blind, died in 1940.^[10] Mabel Lloyd Ridgely died in 1962, aged 89 years. The research room at the Delaware Public Archives in Dover, Delaware is named for Mabel Lloyd Ridgely.^[11]

Mabel's grandson, Henry Ridgely Horsey, was a judge on the Delaware Supreme Court from 1978 to 1994.^[12]

Ridgely was inducted into the Hall of Fame of Delaware Women. The Delaware Public Archives named a research room in her honor.^[13][14]