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Louisa Fast

American Feminist

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionDec 19, 2025
Entity authorityQ27710537
Source-derived summary

Louisa K. Fast (January 15, 1878 – November 6, 1979) was an American suffragist and international activist.

Early life

Louisa was born in Canton, Ohio to Melanchton Luther Fast and Maria Louisa Kuhn. Louisa's father died one month before she was born, and her mother died three weeks after she was born. When her parents died, she became a ward of William McKinley, who was a friend of her parents. He was governor of Ohio at the time. Kinley took care of her until Louisa became of age, and kept in contact with her even during his presidency. Fast graduated in 1898 from Smith College. She went to France during World War I as part of Smith College's relief unit, and she worked to rebuild the countryside.

Activism

Fast became involved with the League of Women Voters in 1920. At the time, the organization had just been formed.

Editorial summary

“Louisa Fast” enters the record as american Feminist. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Louisa, Fast and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1878, 1979, 1898, 1920—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1878-01-15. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Louisa, Fast and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Louisa Fast” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Louisa, Fast and American provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 19, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q27710537. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1878, 1979, 1898 and 1920.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Louisa Fast primary sources, Louisa Fast archive and Louisa research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Louisa Fast” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.