Marguerite Wells

{{short description|American social reformer}}

{{Infobox person

|name = Marguerite Milton Wells

|image = Marguerite Milton Wells (1872–1959) (cropped).png

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|birth_name =

| birth_date = {{Birth year|1872}}

| birth_place = Milwaukee, Wisconsin

| death_date = {{Death year and age|1959|1872}}

|death_place = Minneapolis, Minnesota

|nationality =

|other_names =

|occupation = Suffragist, social reformer

|years_active =

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|notable_works =

}}

Marguerite Milton Wells (1872–1959) was an American suffragist and social reformer. She served as president of the Minnesota League of Women Voters and president of the National League of Women Voters.

Wells was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1872.{{cite web |title=Wells, Marguerite Milton (1872–1959) |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/wells-marguerite-milton-1872-1959 |website=Encyclopedia.com |access-date=1 January 2024}} She attended Smith College from 1891 through 1895. In 1917 she became a member of the Minnesota Woman Suffrage Association (MWSA). There she organized a petition drive supporting the passage of Woman Suffrage and presented to the Minnesota congressional delegation.{{cite web |title=Suffragists in Minnesota |url=https://suffragistmemorial.org/suffragists-in-minnesota/ |website=Turning Point Suffragist Memorial |access-date=1 January 2024}} Following the passage of the 19th Amendment Wells turned her attention to the newly created League of Women Voters.{{cite book |title=Notable American women. 4: The modern period: a biographical dictionary / ed. by Barbara Sicherman |date=1993 |publisher=Belknap Pr |location=Cambridge, Mass |isbn=9780674627338 |pages=723-724 |edition= |url=https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:457646150$753i}} She served as president of the Minnesota League of Women Voters{{cite web |title=LibGuides: Women's Suffrage in Minnesota: Overview |url=https://libguides.mnhs.org/suffrage |website=MNHS Reference Staff |access-date=1 January 2024 |language=en}} (1922-1932) and president of the National League of Women Voters (1934-1944).

In 1929 her article Some Effects of Woman Suffrage was published in the journal Women in the Modern World.{{cite web |last1=Wells |first1=Marguerite M. |title=Some Effects of Woman Suffrage |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1017202 |website=The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science |access-date=1 January 2024 |pages=207–216 |date=1929}} In 1938 the National League of Women Voters published her 22-page booklet A Portrait of the League of Women Voters at the Age of Eighteen.{{cite web |last1=Wells |first1=Marguerite M. |title=Portrait of the league of women voters at the age of eighteen |url=https://catalog.libraries.psu.edu/catalog/28921970 |publisher=National League of Women Voters |access-date=1 January 2024 |date=1938}}

Wells died in Minneapolis in 1959. Her papers are in the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe Institute{{cite web |title=Papers of Marguerite Milton Wells, 1895-1959 |url=https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/8/resources/7948 |website=Schlesinger Library |access-date=1 January 2024}} Her name is included on the Minnesota Woman Suffrage Memorial.