Louisa Fast
American Feminist

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.
“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.
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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.