Volume VI Part 10 (1/2)
Monroe Hopkins, Mrs. Caleb Miller, Mrs. Henry Churchill Cooke, Mrs.
Ruth B. Hensey, Mrs. George Eas.e.m.e.nt. There were few years when Dr.
and Mrs. Tindall did not occupy some official position.
Corresponding secretaries: Miss Henrietta Morrison, Mrs. B. B.
Ches.h.i.+re, Mrs. Jennie L. Monroe, Mrs. L. M. Coope, Mrs. Ida Finley McCrille, Miss Lavinia H. Engle, Miss Abbie R. Knapp, Miss Helen M.
Calkins, Francis Scott, Mrs. Rachel Ezekiel, Mrs. Edna V. Bryan.
Recording secretaries: Miss Emma M. Gillett (8 years), Miss Mary H.
Williams, Mrs. Jeannette M. Bradley, Miss Josephine Mason, Mrs. Sarah Newman, Mrs. Louis Ottenberg.
Treasurers: Mrs. Kate Ward Burt (5 years), W. G. Steward, Mrs. Alice P. Rand. Mrs. Kent served in some official capacity from 1898 until her death in 1918.
Auditors: George A. Warren, Miss Edith Harris, William Lee, Mrs. R. G.
Whiting, Mrs. F. M. Gregory, Mrs. Jessica Penn Hunter, Miss Audrey Goss, Mrs. L. Aveihle, Miss Alice Jenkins, Mrs. Jeanne F. Brackett, Mrs. Sarah Beall, Mrs. Frank Pyle. Many of the above named also filled other offices.
Among the names which appear in the records of the years as chairmen of committees, in addition to many of the above, are those of Miss Helen Varick Boswell, Dr. Clara McNaughton, Miss Nettie Lovisa White, Mrs. Katharine Reed Balentine and Miss Abby T. Nicholls.
CHAPTER IX.
FLORIDA.[32]
With the removal from the State of Mrs. Ella C. Chamberlain in 1897 and no one found to take the leaders.h.i.+p, the cause of woman suffrage, which was represented only by the one society at her home in Tampa, languished for years. In 1907 John Schnarr, a prominent business man of Orlando, circulated a pet.i.tion to Congress for a Federal Suffrage Amendment which was sent down by the National a.s.sociation and obtained numerous signatures. It is interesting to note that, from the beginning of the suffrage movement in Florida, men as well as women have been its active supporters.
As the years pa.s.sed and the movement waxed strong throughout the country and important victories were won, the women of Florida imbibed the spirit of their day and generation. It became a frequent topic of discussion and women in various places began to realize the need of organization. On June 15, 1912, the Equal Franchise League was organized at Jacksonville in the home of Mrs. Herbert Anderson by herself and Mrs. Katherine Livingstone Eagan, with about thirty ladies present. Monthly meetings were held in a room in a large new office building given them for headquarters by the owners and forty-five members were enrolled. Mrs. Eagan, the president, soon went to Paris and her duties fell upon the vice-president, Mrs. Roselle C. Cooley; the secretary, Miss Frances Anderson, and the other officers. In the autumn two leading suffragists, who were attending the National Child Labor Convention, were invited to address the League, but neither the Board of Trade nor the Woman's Club would rent its auditorium for a suffrage meeting, so they had to open a door between their headquarters and an adjoining room and a large audience was present.
The league affiliated with the National American Suffrage a.s.sociation, which the next year sent a field worker to help in legislative work. In 1914 it published a special edition of _The State_, which was put into the hands of all the Florida members of Congress and the Legislature. Mrs. Medill McCormick, chairman of the National Congressional Committee, sent one of the national workers, Miss Lavinia Engle, to a.s.sist. This year Mr. Heard, president of the Heard National Bank, gave the league the use of a large front room on its first office floor.
On Feb. 13, 1913, the Political Equality Club of Lake Helen was formed with Mrs. S. A. Armstrong president and Mrs. Irene Adams secretary. On the 27th the Equal Suffrage League of Orlando was organized with the Rev. Mary A. Safford president, and in October the first demand for suffrage was made here. The Mayor issued a notice that all freeholders must register for the sewerage bond election by the 9th, and a few suffragists saw their opportunity. Very secretly and hurriedly, before the Mayor could get word of it and give notice that the election was meant for men only, Miss Emma Hainer and Mrs. Helen Starbuck gathered together several women who owned valuable property and they went to the city clerk's office and announced that they had come in response to the Mayor's call to register for the coming election. He referred them to the Mayor, who referred them to the Council, which referred them to the city attorney. He told them that the law did not permit women to register. This they knew, but their action caused a discussion of the question and disclosed a widespread belief that women should have the right to vote.
At a meeting of the executive board of the Orlando league in the home of Mrs. J. C. Patterson April 21 the question of forming a State a.s.sociation was earnestly considered and Miss Safford was requested to prepare a ”call” for this purpose. Soon afterwards she and Mrs.
Starbuck were sent to Tallaha.s.see by the league to aid the suffrage work being done in the Legislature. Here the great need of a State organization was very apparent, as legislators constantly asked, ”Where are the suffragists from my district?”
During the summer through conversation with interested suffragists and correspondence with Mrs. Cooley, president of the Jacksonville league, arrangements were made for calling a convention to organize a State a.s.sociation at Orlando at the time of the meeting of the State Federation of Women's Clubs. This took place Nov. 4, 1913, Miss Safford was chairman, Mrs. Isabel Stanley secretary of the convention and addresses were made by women from half a dozen towns. A committee was appointed to draft a const.i.tution and by-laws which reported at an adjourned meeting on the 6th, when they were adopted and the following officers for the State Equal Suffrage a.s.sociation were elected: President, Miss Safford, Orlando; first vice-president, Mrs. C. J.
Huber, Webster; second, Mrs. Ella Chamberlain, Tampa; third, Miss Caroline Brevard, Tallaha.s.see; corresponding secretary, Miss Elizabeth Askew, Tampa; recording secretary, Miss Frances B. Anderson, Jacksonville; treasurer, Mrs. John Schnarr, Orlando; auditors, Mrs.
Anna Andrus, Miami, and Mrs. J. M. Thayer, Orlando.
In 1914 Miss Safford published a bulletin, showing that the State a.s.sociation had auxiliaries in Jacksonville, Lake Helen, Orlando, Zellwood, Pine Castle, Winter Park, Pensacola, Milton, Miami, Tampa, and a Men's Equal Suffrage League in Orlando with Mayor E. F. Sperry as president and Justin Van Buskirk as secretary. Miss Kate M. Gordon, president of the Southern Woman's Suffrage Conference, had held a successful meeting in Jacksonville. The Orlando League had had a float in the trades' parade of the midwinter fair and a booth at the fair where the names of voters in favor of submitting a State suffrage amendment were obtained. It had had ”teas” for replenis.h.i.+ng the treasury and closed the year with a banquet complimentary to the Men's League. A committee was preparing a program on the laws of the State for the next year's work. The Pensacola league was arranging to issue a special edition of the _Journal_ and have a booth at the tri-county fair. Most of the leagues had formed cla.s.ses to study history and the duties of citizens.h.i.+p and had distributed literature and some of them had held a celebration on May 2, as the National a.s.sociation had requested.
The first annual convention, held at Pensacola, Dec. 8-10, 1914, stressed the pledging of candidates for Congress and Legislature and securing signatures to pet.i.tions. The second, at Orlando, Feb. 3, 1915, formed congressional districts, according to the plan of the National a.s.sociation. The third, at Miami, March 15-16, 1916, arranged for suffrage schools and planned to a.s.sist work outside the State. The fourth, at Tampa, Nov. 20, 1917, found the members busy with war work.
The fifth, at Daytona, Nov. 19, 1918, planned to introduce a bill for Primary suffrage in the Legislature and co-operate with the Federation of Women's Clubs to secure it. The sixth, at Tampa, Oct. 30-31, 1919, was devoted to plans for ratification of the Federal Suffrage Amendment and citizens.h.i.+p.
While the State a.s.sociation could show no definite accomplishment, its work had been largely educational and a considerable public sentiment in favor of woman suffrage had been created. Its organization and growth center about the name of the Rev. Mary Augusta Safford, a pioneer worker in the suffrage cause in several States. She came in 1905 to make Florida her home from Des Moines, Iowa, where she had been pastor of the Unitarian church for eleven years. Her energy, enthusiasm and devotion carried all before her and but for her organization might have been delayed for years. For four years she was the untiring State president, then Mrs. Frank Stranahan served in 1917, Miss Safford again in 1918. The following, in addition to those elsewhere mentioned, are among those prominent in the suffrage work in the State: Mrs. A. E. McDavid, Miss Minnie Kehoe, Pensacola; Mrs.
Susan B. Dyer, Winter Park; Mrs. H. W. Thompson, Miss C. H. Day, Milton; Mrs. S. V. Moore, Cocoanut Grove; Mrs. Kate C. Havens, Miami; Miss Pleasaunce Baker, Zellwood; Mrs. Grace Hanchett, Orlando.
From its beginning the a.s.sociation worked for the Federal Suffrage Amendment, although it tried also to obtain from the Legislature the submission of a State amendment to the voters. In 1915 Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, the national president, a.s.sisted Miss Safford and the other workers in holding conventions in several congressional districts.
Many local meetings were held, much literature distributed, resolutions secured and legislators interviewed. The Federation of Women's Clubs, the largest organization of women in the State, endorsed the movement. In 1916 Miss Safford went for a month to a.s.sist the campaign in Iowa, to which the a.s.sociation sent $100, and the vice-president, Mrs. Frank Tracy, directed the State work. New leagues were formed, delegates to the national presidential conventions were interviewed and Florida women attended those in Chicago and St. Louis. Dr. Shaw was present at the State convention where 550 members were reported and the distribution of 750 packages of literature. A series of meetings was held in cooperation with the Congressional Committee of the National a.s.sociation and work in the Legislature was done.