Bina Adaline (Numan) Otis
Born: Glenn Falls, Warren County, New York, on January 29, 1847. Married John G. Otis, Glen Falls, Warren County, New York, on September 4, 1865. Died: Topeka, Shawnee County, Kansas, on July 2, 1926.
Sabina Adaline Numan was born to Daniel and Adaline (Mason) Numan in Glen Falls, Warren County, New York, on January 29, 1847. Bina grew up on the family farm, which also hosted a local pastor and a teacher. She married John Grant Otis in Glen Falls on September 4, 1865. The couple settled in Topeka, Shawnee County, Kansas, where John had established a law practice. They had seven children.
John and Bina Otis operated a dairy farm west of Topeka and became actively involved in the Patrons of Husbandry, or Grange. This organization was among the few to engage women in leadership roles. Many Grange members also came to support woman’s suffrage. When Grange members organized the People’s Party, they adopted a suffrage platform. John Otis, a Farmer’s Alliance member, was among candidates elected to office on the Kansas People’s Party in November 1890 before the national organization had formed. He served one term in U.S. Congress, from 1891 to 1893.
The Kansas Legislative War in January and February 1893 elevated tensions between the People’s Party, or Populists, and Republicans, putting the issue of woman’s suffrage in the crosshairs. Election results were yet unresolved as legislators arrived for the session, The Populist Governor Lorenzo Lewelling supported his party’s claim of a majority in the house, while Republicans strongly disagreed. The war brought weeks of dissent, separate legislative sessions, onsite militia, Populists barricading themselves in the hall, and Republicans breaking down the doors. Eventually, the state supreme court ruled in favor of the Republicans. Republican newspapers suggested that Populist women suffragists were to blame.
The Wichita Eagle in January 1893 suggested that the “influence of women in politics is not very encouraging, measured by the present Topeka sample and muddle . . . The Populist minority at Topeka are actuated by neither experience, brains nor patriotism—only by low down dirty partisanship and petticoats.”
Bina Otis, as president of the Women’s Progressive Political League, an arm of the People’s Party, offered words of encouragement when she addressed the League’s first state convention that spring. “It gives me great pleasure to know that you are pushing the work of this progressive period along the line of equal suffrage, even though it be under serious embarrassments, owing to the very active part you are reported to have taken in the legislature muddle of last winter; and rest assured that anything this club can do to promote the cause of equal suffrage will be cheerfully performed. We stand ready to join hands in the equal suffrage cause with the women of all parties and will do all in our power to influence the action of all public journals and party conventions of any political faith.”
Conference attendees pledged “No Suffrage, No Support,” for political candidates who failed to embrace the woman’s suffrage amendment coming to the Kansas ballot in 1894. Susan B. Anthony, Laura Johns, and Bina Otis provided a suffrage lecture for visitors at the Jackson County fair in Holton, in September 1893. Bina continued to speaks in support of the measure in the coming months. The amendment failed to gain enough support in 1894, and the Grange members turned their attention to other important issues. Bina’s address to the women’s groups in 1896 emphasized “the duties devolving on farmers as citizens.” She reminded the important duties “of all the members of the Order,” which included “seeing to it that the farmer’s sons and daughters have the benefit of as good an education as any other class.”
Bina Otis continued to have an interest in politics, aligning with the Progressives in the early 20th century. She spent Kansas Day 1912 with suffragists including Catherine A. Hoffman, Stella Stubbs, Clara Cecilia Goddard, Cora G. Lewis, Mattie Britt Hale, Eustace Brown, Lucy Browne Johnston, and Helen Eacker. She was among Progressives who met in Topeka in December 1912 to organize a state Progressive party in advance of the coming woman’s suffrage amendment on the ballot that November. With the passage of that amendment, Bina continue her work, elected a Progressive precinct chair in Menoken Township, ready to vote in the interim election in November 1914. John G. Otis died in Topeka, Shawnee County, Kansas, on February 22, 1916. Bina Otis lived until July 2, 1926.
Entry: Otis, Bina Adaline (Numan)
Author: Kansas Historical Society
Author information: The Kansas Historical Society is a state agency charged with actively safeguarding and sharing the state's history.
Date Created: February 2025
Date Modified: February 2025
The author of this article is solely responsible for its content.
