It is speculated that this historical precocity (being ahead of its time) as well as Shadd Cary's confrontational style are among the reasons that the organization did not last for very long.
[4] The goals of the organization as articulated in the Statement of Purpose were for advancing equal rights of women through access to work, to conduct business, banking, newspapers "unbiased by sex restrictions and jealousies" and the right to vote (Black women's suffrage).
The organization emphasized work parity and financial autonomy as well as suffrage for Black women, and thus showed a paradigm shift away from the maternal and family-centered rhetoric of women's reform movements at the time, putting pressure on gender ideologies in post-Reconstruction America.
[2] On February 20, 1880, the African-American newspaper People's Advocate reported a meeting of the Colored Women's Progressive Franchise at the Mt.
[7] The minutes and statement of purpose for the Colored Women's Progressive Franchise are held at the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University's Library in Washington, D.C., among the Mary Ann Shadd Cary papers.