Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/475

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NEW YORK
459

5 noes. The resolution had still to pass another Legislature two years later but this was the beginning of the end for which two generations of women had worked and waited.

[Laws. A complete digest of the laws relating to women and children during the first twenty years of the century was prepared for this chapter by Miss Kathryn H. Starbuck, attorney and counsellor at law in Saratoga Springs. It comprises about 3,600 words and includes laws relating to property, marriage, guardianship, domestic relations, etc. Much regret is felt that the exigencies of space compel the omission of the laws in all the State chapters. Miss Starbuck gave also valuable information on office holding and occupations, which had to be omitted for the same reason.]

NEW YORK CITY CAMPAIGNS.[1]

The story of the growth of the woman suffrage movement in Greater New York is one of the most interesting chapters in the history of this cause, for while it advanced slowly for many years, it rose in 1915 and 1917 to a height never attained elsewhere and culminated in two campaigns that in number of adherents and comprehensive work were never equaled.

The Brooklyn Woman Suffrage Association was formed May 13, 1869, and the New York City Society in 1870. From this time various organizations came into permanent existence until in 1903 there were fifteen devoted to suffrage propaganda. In Manhattan (New York City) and Brooklyn these were bound together by county organizations but in order to unite all the suffragists in cooperative work the Interurban Woman Suffrage Council was formed in 1903 at the Brooklyn home of a pioneer, Mrs. Priscilla D. Hackstaff, with the President of the Kings County Political Equality League, Mrs. Martha Williams, presiding. The Interurban began with a roster of five which gradually increased to twenty affiliated societies, with an associate membership besides of 150 women. Under the able leadership of Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, chairman, it established headquarters in the Martha Washington Hotel, New York City, Feb.

  1. The History is indebted for this part of the chapter to Mrs. Oreola Williams Haskell, former president of the Kings County Political Equality League; head of the Press Bureau of the New York City Woman Suffrage Party through the two campaigns, 1915-1917, and of the League of Women Voters from its beginning until the present time.