Milagros Benet de Mewton | |
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| Born | Milagros Benet Colón 22 November 1868 |
| Died | 26 December 1948 (aged 80) Santurce, Puerto Rico |
| Nationality | Spanish, U.S. (Puerto Rico) |
| Other names | Milagros Benet de Newton |
| Occupation(s) | teacher and suffragist |
| Years active | 1901–1940 |
| Relatives | José Benet Colón (brother) |
Milagros Benet de Mewton (née Benet Colón; 22 November 1868 – 26 December 1948) was a Puerto Rican educator, women's rights advocate and suffragist. Born into an intellectual, liberal family, Benet trained as a teacher. Inhabitants of the island gained U.S. citizenship in 1917, two decades after the United States acquired Puerto Rico from Spain in the Spanish–American War. Benet was active in the struggle for women's enfranchisement and joined the first suffragist organization Liga Femínea Puertorriqueña that year. When U.S. women gained the right to vote with the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1919, 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. Universal suffrage, eliminating the educational restrictions, was gained in 1936. Benet is remembered for her work in education and for expanding women's rights in Puerto Rico.