The Massachusetts Association is the most active of the three societies named. Its work is generally local though it has sent help to Colorado, Michigan, and other Western States. It has kept petitions in circulation, and has presented petitions and memorials to the State legislatures. It has asked for hearings and secured able speakers for them. It has held conventions, mass-meetings, Fourth of July celebrations. It has helped organize local Woman suffrage clubs and societies, and has printed for circulation numerous woman suffrage tracts. The amount of work done by its lecturing agents can be seen by the statement of Margaret W. Campbell, who alone, as agent of the American, the New England and the Massachusetts associations, traveled in twenty different States and two territories, organizing and speaking in conventions.[1] As part of the latest work of this society may be mentioned its efforts to present before the women of the State, in clear and comprehensive form, an explanation of the different sections of the new law "allowing women to vote for school committees." As soon as the law passed the legislature of 1879, a circular of instructions to women was carefully prepared by Samuel E. Sewall, an eminent lawyer and member of the board of the Massachusetts Association, in which all the points of law in relation to the new right were ably presented. Thousands of copies of this circular were sent to women all over the State.
The Centennial Tea Party was held in Boston, December 15, 1873, in response to the following call:
The women of New England who believe that "taxation without representation is tyranny," and that our forefathers were justified in defying despotic power by throwing the tea into Boston harbor, invite the men and women of New England to unite with them in celebrating the one-hundredth anniversary of that event in Fanueil Hall.[2]
- ↑ Mary F. Eastman, Ada C. Bowles, Lorenza Haynes, Elizabeth K. Churchill, Hulda B. Loud, Matilda Hindman and other agents in the lecture field have also done a great deal of missionary work.
- ↑ The committee of arrangements were Mrs. Isaac Ames, Harriet H. Robinson, Sarah B. Otis, Philip Wheeler, Jane Tenney, Mrs. A. A. Fellows, Mrs. Jackson, Miss Talbot and Miss Halsey. The speakers were: Wendell Phillips, Mary A. Livermore, Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Elizabeth K. Churchill, Margaret W. Campbell, Mary F. Eastman, Henry B. Blackwell, Lucy Stone and others. Julia Ward Howe and Mr. C. P. Cranch, read original poems. Two old-time tea-party songs, curiosities in their line, were read. One, dated Boston, 1773, entitled "Lines on Bohea Tea," was written by Susannah Clarke, great-aunt of W. S. Robinson; the other, copied from Thomas' Boston Journal, of December 2, 1773, was written by Mrs. Ames, a tailoress.
Putman, Salem; Frank B. Sanborn, Springfield; Mercy B. Jackson, M. D., Boston; Samuel May, jr., Leicester; Margaret W. Campbell, Springfield; Rev. C. M. Wines, Brookline; Mary A. Livermore, Melrose; William S. Robinson, Maiden; Henry B. Blackwell, Boston; Lucy Stone, Boston; S. S. Foster, Worcester; Mrs. Wilcox, Worcester; Ada R. Bowles, Cambridge. Corresponding Secretary, Nina Moore, Hyde Park. Recording Secretary, Charles C. Whipple, Boston. Treasurer, E. D. Draper, Hopedale.
