CHAPTER XXVI.
AMERICAN WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION.
Circular Letter—Cleveland Convention—Association Completed—Henry Ward Beecher, President—Convention in Steinway Hall,—New York George William Curtis Speaks— The First Annual Meeting held in Cleveland—Mrs. Tracy Cutler,—President Mass meeting in Steinway Hall, New York, 1871—State Action Recommended Moses Coit Tyler Speaks—Mass Meetings in 1871 in Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, Pittaburgh—Memorial to Congress—Letters from William Lloyd Garrison and others— Hon. G. F. Hoar Advocates Woman Suffrage—Anniversary celebrated at St Louis —Dr. Stone, of Michigan—Thomas Wentworth Higginson, President, 1872—Convention in Cooper Institute, New York—Two Hundred Young Women march in. Meeting in Plymouth Church—Letters from Louise May Alcott and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps—The Annual Meeting in Detroit—Julia Ward Howe, President—Letter from James T. Field—Mary F. Eastman Addresses the Convention. Bishop Gilbert Haven President for 1875—Convention Steinway Hall, New York Hon. Charles Bradlaugh Speaks—Centennial Celebration, July 3d—Petition to Congress for a XVI. Amendment—Conventions in Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Washington, and Louisville.
It was during the summer of 1809 that the initiative steps in the formation of the American Woman Suffrage Association[1] were taken, and the following letter circulated:
Many friends of the cause of woman suffrage desire that its interests may be promoted by the assembling and action of a convention devised on a truly National and representative basis for the organization of an American Woman Suffrage Association.
Without depreciating the value of Associations already existing, it is yet deemed that an organization at once more comprehensive and more widely representative than any of these is urgently called for. In this view, the Executive Committee of the New England Woman Suffrage Association has appointed the undersigned a Committee of Correspondence to confer by letter with the friends of woman suffrage throughout the country on the subject of the proposed convention.
We ask to hear from you in reply, at your earliest convenience. Our present plan is that the authority of the convention shall be vested in dele-
- ↑ The history of this Association from its formation is compiled by Harriot E. Stanton, from reports in The Agitator and Woman's Journal.
