Cornelia Petty Jerman

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Cornelia Petty Jerman (December 1, 1874 – February 3, 1946) was an American suffragist and Democratic Party official from North Carolina. She was born near Carthage, North Carolina, to William Carey Petty, a railroad executive, and Emma Virginia Thagard Petty. She earned a degree from Oxford Female College in 1892 and studied voice at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.

Jerman led and organized several women's groups. She was president of the Woman's Club of Raleigh (1909–1911), helped oversee the construction of the club’s first two buildings, and led the North Carolina Federation of Women's Clubs. She helped organize the Raleigh Equal Suffrage League and, in 1919, became vice-president of the North Carolina Equal Suffrage League. After suffrage was won, she led the Raleigh League of Women Voters. In 1920, she became North Carolina’s first female delegate to the Democratic National Convention and later served as president of the Legislative Council of North Carolina Women (1922–1933). She was the vice president of North Carolina’s Democratic State Convention in 1922 and was the first woman to address a Democratic state convention. She joined the Democratic National Committee in 1928 and campaigned for Al Smith and Franklin D. Roosevelt. She also worked as assistant collector of Internal Revenue in North Carolina, and served on the boards of two banks and the Women’s National Democratic Club.

Jerman married banker Thomas Palmer Jerman in 1898. They had a son, Thomas Palmer Jerman, Jr. (1906–1974), and a daughter, Lucy, who died in childhood; she also raised her niece Carey Petty. She was widowed in 1911. Jerman died in 1946 at age 71 and was buried at Historic Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh. A small collection of her papers is archived at East Carolina University.