Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/185

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INDIANA
171

Municipal League of Indiana does hereby recommend full and equal, suffrage for women in both State and nation.”

By a vote of the local societies it was decided not to call a convention during the war, as every woman was engaged in war work, but monthly board meetings were held in different towns in 1917 and 1918, keeping the busy women in touch with suffrage work. During the Legislature of 1919 other organizations seemed desirous of pushing the suffrage work and the association voted to give them a free hand. It assisted the effort for the ratification of the Federal Amendment by sending letters and having resolutions passed by organizations. It has at this time (1920) 29 affiliated societies, 500 dues-paying members and over 6,000 non-dues-paying members.


INDIANA. PART II.[1]

During the early years of the present century there was no definite campaign for suffrage in Indiana but the partial success of repeated efforts to influence the General Assembly to pass various suffrage hills showed a large body of interested if unorganized favorable opinion. The State had never been entirely organized but there were several centers where flourishing associations kept up interest. In 1901 the State Woman Suffrage Association under the presidency of Mrs. Bertha G. Wade of Indianapolis engaged chiefly in legislative work but it gradually ceased effort. There were attempts toward its re-organization in the following years, assisted by the National Association, but interest proved to be not sufficiently keen or widespread.

The Indianapolis Equal Suffrage Society, organized in 1878 under the direction of Mrs. May Wright Sewall, had never suspended activities. Dr. Amelia R. Keller was its president in 1909 and in order to stimulate interest and give an outlet for the energy of its members, assisted by Mrs. Grace Julian Clarke, Mrs. Felix T. McWhirter, Mrs. John F. Barnhill, Mrs. W. T. Barnes, Mrs. Winfield Scott Johnson and Dr. Rebecca Rogers

  1. The History is indebted for this part of the chapter to Mrs. Lenore Hanna Cox, an officer of the Woman's Franchise League from its beginning in 1911 until its work was finished in 1920.