Mabel Lee was born in Guangzhou, China, in 1896 and moved with her family to New York City in 1905. By age 16, she was already active in the suffrage movement. In 1912, she rode on horseback at the head of a New York City parade of 10,000 suffragists, calling voting rights and equality of opportunity the hallmarks of true feminism.
Although women in New York won the vote in 1917 and the 19th Amendment extended it nationally in 1920, Chinese immigrants like Lee remained excluded due to the Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred citizenship until 1943. Still, Lee and other Chinese suffragists fought for women’s voting rights, even though they themselves were disenfranchised.
Lee graduated from Barnard College and earned a PhD in economics from Columbia University in 1921, becoming the first Chinese woman in the U.S. to do so. She later published her dissertation, The Economic History of China. After her father’s death in 1924, she led the First Chinese Baptist Church of New York City and founded the Chinese Christian Center, which offered classes, health services, and community support.
Lee never married, dedicating her life to the Chinese community until her death in 1966. It remains unclear whether she ever became a U.S. citizen or voted.
