Women played key roles in Trumbull County's history

Some were leaders in their fields.
WARREN -- Trumbull County has a wealth of women who've helped make up its history, often paving the way for women who followed in their footsteps.
Wendell F. Lauth, a Mahoning Valley historian, said it's important to point out their contributions. Often, he said, women and minorities get lost amid the history of white men.
"There's been a criticism sometimes of our printed history that we tend to tell a story from a certain perspective ... so we leave out elements of the story and we slant the story a certain way," Lauth said. "To me, it's important to present a more complete picture of our history and therefore, you need to recall all parts of the story."
And Trumbull County's story is not complete without highlighting some of the women who helped write it.
Elizabeth Hauser was an important player in the suffrage movement. Zell Hart Deming became the first female member of the Associated Press and the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Phoebe Sutliff was a college president who became a leader at the Warren library.
"All these women had very varied interests and I think it's important to keep pointing that out today," Lauth said.
Snapshots: Following are snapshots of each of these remarkable women.
UZell Hart Deming (1872? -1936), of Warren, former publisher and president of the Warren Tribune-Chronicle, was the only female member of the Associated Press at the time of her death. She was also the only female member of the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
Hart Deming had one daughter in her first marriage to John O. Hart and sought a position at the Warren paper when he died. She started as a society writer and later became a stockholder and later president and general manager. She was with the paper from 1906 to 1936.
"She just kept climbing the ladder in the newspaper business and opened the door for others," Lauth said.
Her second husband was William C. Deming, publisher of the Cheyenne (Wyo.) Tribune, who had a substantial interest in the Warren paper.
UPhoebe Temperance Sutliff (1859-1955), of Warren, was the first female president of the Rockford, Ill., College for Women, serving from 1896 to 1901 before retiring back to Warren.
She also headed the Warren Public Library Board from 1938 until the time of her death. The nationally active Democratic Party leader who organized female workers for the party in Ohio and, in 1924, ran for Congress.
In a will drafted in her own handwriting, Sutliff left much of her estate and possessions to create the Sutliff Museum in honor of her parents at the Warren library. The museum depicts life from the 1830s to the turn of the century.
UElizabeth Hauser (1873-1958), of Girard, became a suffragist at 16, working beside Harriet Taylor Upton at the National Women's Suffragist Association headquarters in Warren.
Hauser began her career as editor of the Girard Grit newspaper when she was 19 and resigned three years later to become Upton's personal secretary. When the National Women's Suffragist Association headquarters moved to New York in 1909, Hauser followed to lead publicity.
She helped organize the League of Women Voters and was a national director of the group.