New England Woman Suffrage Association

The NEWSA, which accepted that approach, was organized partly to counter the activities of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who opposed it, insisting that women and black men should be enfranchised at the same time.

[3] By the time of the NEWSA's founding, hope for fulfillment of that goal was embodied in a proposed Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would prohibit the denial of suffrage because of race.

[9] They and their abolitionist allies increasingly viewed women's suffrage as an objective that, even if successful, would not produce comparable political benefits, and they considered the campaign for it to be a drain on resources that were needed elsewhere.

[12] Olympia Brown, an ally who played a role in the NEWSA's creation, criticized abolitionist leaders by name and said, "We must look for our support to new men".

[13] Stanton and Anthony greatly inflamed feelings by accepting help from George Francis Train, a supporter of women's rights who was also a wealthy Democrat and an outspoken racist.

"[17] On the advice of Abby Kelley Foster, she announced a meeting in Boston in May 1868 to discuss her proposal and succeeded in gathering a hall full of people.

Lucy Stone, a pioneering worker for women's rights who later became a leading figure in the new organization, had not yet moved to Boston from New Jersey and was not deeply involved in its planning.

[24] The New England Woman Suffrage Association (NEWSA) was formed on November 19, 1868, during the second and last day of a regional women's rights convention in Boston, Massachusetts, where the new organization was to be headquartered.

Despite opposition by Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison and Frances Harper, Stone convinced the meeting to approve the resolution.

[30] Two months later, however, when the Fifteenth Amendment was in danger of becoming stalled in Congress, Stone backed away from that position and declared that "Woman must wait for the Negro.

[36] In January 1869, supporters of the NEWSA began publishing a newspaper called the Woman's Advocate from the office of the American Anti-Slavery Society.

[41] The split in the women's movement was formalized in May 1869 when Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton created the National Woman Suffrage Association to represent their wing.

[42] The executive committee of the NEWSA responded by laying the groundwork for a rival organization called the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA), which was founded in November 1869.