ing delegates to attend a convention to be held under the auspices of that association the following week at Grand Rapids. The society at once made a thorough canvass of the city, which resulted in the attendance of seventy tax-paying women at the school election in September, when the first woman's vote was cast in Manistee county. Each succeeding year has witnessed more women at the school election, until, in 1883, they outnumbered the men, and would have elected their ticket but for a fraud perpetrated by the old school-board, which made the election void.
In August 1881, Mrs. May Wright Sewall delivered two lectures in Manistee. In February 1882, a social, celebrating Miss Anthony's birthday, was given by the association at the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Fowler, and was voted a success. Through the untiring efforts of Mrs. Lucy T. Stansell, who was also a member of the Ladies' Lever League, Mrs. Elizabeth Boynton Harbert gave a Manistee audience a rich treat in her "Homes of Representative Women," and her conversation on suffrage elicited much interest. During the autumn of 1882, petitions asking for municipal suffrage were circulated. The venerable Josiah R. Holden of Grand Rapids, father of Mrs. Fowler, then in his 88th year, obtained the largest number of signatures to his petition of any one in the State. A bill granting municipal suffrage to women was drawn by Mrs. Fowler, introduced in the legislature by Hon. George J. Robinson, and afterwards tabled. At the session of 1885 a similar bill came within a few votes of being carried.
In Grand Rapids there was no revival of systematic work until 1880, when the National Association held a very successful two days' convention in the city. In response to a petition from the society, the legislature in the winter of 1885 passed a law, giving to the tax-paying women of the city the right to vote on school questions at the charter elections. At the first meeting a hundred women were present, and hundreds availed themselves of their new power and voted at the first election.
The State Society held its annual meeting at Grand Rapids, October 7, 8, 9, 1885, at which the address of welcome was given by Mrs. Loraine Immen, president of the City Society,[1]and responded to by Mrs. Stebbins of Detroit.[2]
The only religious sect in the world, unless we except the Quakers, that has recognized the equality of woman, is the Spiritualists. They have always assumed that woman may be a medium of communication from heaven to earth, that the spirits of the universe may breathe through her lips messages of loving kindness and mercy to the children of earth. The Spiritualists in our country are not an organized body, but they are more or less numerous in every State and Territory from ocean to ocean. Their opinions on woman suffrage and equal rights in all respects must be learned from the utterances of their leading speakers and writers of books, from their weekly journals, from resolutions passed at large meetings, and from their usage and methods. A reliable person widely familiar with Spiritualism since its beginning in 1848, says that he has known but very few Spiritualists who were not in favor
- ↑ The officers of the Grand Rapids Society are: President, Mrs. Cordelia F. Briggs; Vice-Presidents, Loraine Immen, Emma Wheeler; Treasurer, Mrs. Henry Spring; Secretary, Mrs. J. W. Adams.
- ↑ Following is a complete list of all officers elected in 1885: President, Mrs. Mary L. Doe of Carrollton; Vice-President, Mrs. Loraine Immen of Grand Rapids; Recording Secretary, Mrs. H. S. Spring of Grand Rapids; Corresponding Secretary, Mrs. Fannie H. Fowler of Manistee; Treasurer, Mrs. C. A. F. Stebbins of Detroit; Advisory Committee, Mrs. E. L. Briggs of Grand Rapids, and Mrs. S. E. V. Emery of Lansing; Executive Committee—First District, Mrs. Harriet J. Boutell of Detroit; Second District, Mrs. Annette B. Gardner Smith of Ann Arbor; Fifth District, Mrs. Emily H. Ketchum of Grand Rapids; Sixth District, Francis M. Stuart of Flint; Eighth District, Mrs. Frances C. Stafford of Milwaukee; Ninth District, Col. S. W. Fowler of Manistee; Eleventh and Twelfth Districts, Mrs. R. A. Campbell, Traverse City.
