Milagros Benet de Mewton, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

Milagros Benet de Mewton

Puerto Rican teacher and suffragist

Date of Birth: 22-Nov-1868

Place of Birth: Cayey, Puerto Rico, United States

Date of Death: 26-Dec-1948

Profession: teacher, activist

Nationality: United States

Zodiac Sign: Sagittarius

Milagros Benet de Mewton (22 November 1868 – 26 December 1948) was a Puerto Rican educator, women's rights advocate and suffragist.
From an intellectual, liberal family, Benet trained as a teacher.
After the United States acquired Puerto Rico from Spain, inhabitants of the island gained U.
S.
citizenship.
Benet was active in the struggle for women's enfranchisement and joined the first suffragist organization Liga Femínea Puertorriqueña in 1917.
When U.S.
women gained the right to vote with the passage of the 19th Amendment, Benet led the push to extend its coverage to Puerto Rico.
In 1924, she filed a lawsuit challenging the right of the electoral board to refuse to register women as they were U.S.
citizens.
The Supreme Court of Puerto Rico ruled that states and territories have the right to determine who can vote and denied her claim. Benet continued pressing through the Liga Social Sufragista for the filing of various bills, which continued to be rejected by the insular legislature.
In 1928, she pushed for the U.S.
Congress to resolve the discrepancies in voting rights for women in Puerto Rico.
Faced with the possibility that the federal legislature might give women the right to vote, the Puerto Rican legislature finally passed a law in 1929 granting suffrage to literate women.
Benet is remembered for her work in education and for expanding women's rights in Puerto Rico.