Volume 14 , Issue 10

Suffrage History In America

Though the Chicago women did not win complete suffrage until 1920, the first women's organization to raise the suffrage issue directly was the Chicago Sorosis Club, founded by Mary Livermore, Myra Bradwell, and Kate Doggett in 1868. It was this founding, the Sorosis confronted the issue of whether to concentrate on securing women's rights alone, or to promote a universal suffrage that included black suffrage and rejected any property or education requirements for voting.

The dilemma split the Sorosis, as it did the National Suffrage movement, and any united effort for suffrage disappeared in February, 1869 when both sides held woman suffrage conventions and each group formed its own association." - http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1217.html

There was a letter from Mrs. Jane Graham Jones concerning the suffrage question - Mme. MacMahon and Mme. Theirs. It was published in Meuton, France, March 10, 1878. It begins with "My Dear Mrs. Harbert: Although far from the center of agitation, I hail with lively joy each step of progress that echoes to me across the sea." If you move down through the letter from Jane Graham Jones to the end of the letter with the subheading, "Women Are Troublesome," Mrs. Jones continues and quotes Socrates:

"The great question the ages has been how to keep them in a state of subjection. Socrates, the greatest of philosophers, said: I would, O. Crito, that the multitude could effect the greatest evils, that they might effect the greatest good; for then it would be well. But now they can do neither, for they can make a man neither wise nor foolish; but they do whatever chances.

Jane goes on to say, "The greatest of philosophers thought evil doers a more hopeful growth than irresponsible actors or nonentities. I am one of those who think that all agitations and upheavals are the volcanic results of natural causes, and that Providence molds, shapes, directs, and adapts all things for the preservation, progress, amelioration and happiness of mankind. Let us have faith. Yours sincerely, J. G. Jones."   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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