Mary Ingraham

Mary "May" Ingraham (30 July or June 1901 – 26 March 1982) was a Bahamian suffragist who, among other things, was the founding president of the Bahamas Women's Suffrage Movement.

Suffragist
Along with Georgianna Symonette, Eugenia Lockhart and Mabel Walker, Ingraham founded the Women's Suffrage Movement.

In 1962, women gained the right to vote and serve in elected office in the legislature. By 1967 black women had organized themselves into a strong voting block that contributed to the Progressive Liberal Party's win and eventually Majority rule.

Recognition
Mary Ingraham Intergenerational Care Centre – in Nassau at St. Vincent Road and Faith Avenue – is named for Ingraham. The centre is under the purview of the Department of Social Services and Community Development within the Bahamas Ministry of Social Services and Urban Development and is operated by the South Bahamas Conference of the Inter-American Division of Seventh-day Adventists.

The Bahamas Post Office, on October 10, 2012, issued commemorative panes – six different postage stamps per pane, titled 50th Anniversary of Women Suffrage (two rows, clockwise, from the top left):  Mary Ingraham – 15¢  Georgianna Symonette (1902–1965) – 25¢  Mabel Walker (1902–1987) – 50¢  Eugenia Lockhart (1908–??) – 65¢  Dame Alberta Isaacs – 70¢  Dame Doris Johnson (1921–1983) – 80¢
 * ... each of the six stamps bearing the portrait of notable women who influenced women's suffrage in The Bahamas.

Affiliations
In the past Ingraham was a Daughter Ruler of the Improved Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the World and a Matron of the Prince Hall Order of the Eastern Star.

Family
Mary Ingraham was born in the St. Agnes district of Nassau, Bahamas to Ellis H. Mason and his wife Alice Leanora (née Bartlett).

Three of Ingraham's brothers were musicians in the United States:
 * Norman Mason (1895–1971), a Dixieland clarinetist, multi-instrumentalist, bandleader;
 * Oliver Welock Mason, a trumpeter who, in the 1930s and 1940s, performed with the orchestra for traveling ministrel shows; and
 * Henry Morris Mason, a trumpeter who recorded as a sideman for Fannie May Goosby, Cleo Gibson, Blanche Calloway, Leon Abbey, Willie Lewis, Eddie Brunner, and Gene Sedric.

On December 30, 1919, Mary married Rufus Harcourt Ingraham (1900–1967) in Grant's Town, one of the over-the-hill suburbs of Nassau.