That same year Mary Darwin chaired the first meeting of the executive committee of the Iowa Woman's Suffrage Association.

She became a popular speaker on the subject throughout the state, but she was eventually shut out of the statewide movement because of her more liberal attitudes on such topics as free love.

After living in Washington, D.C. from 1876 to 1880 she returned to Burlington and became involved with the Woman's Christian Temperance Union on both the local and state levels.

The house features shallow hipped roofs; wide, bracketed eaves; brick friezes that are painted white; and two wooden verandas.

This article about a property in Des Moines County, Iowa on the National Register of Historic Places is a stub.