Women's suffrage in Delaware
Stuart, along with prominent national suffragists lobbied the Delaware General Assembly to amend the state constitution in favor of women's suffrage.
In 1913, a chapter of the Congressional Union (CU), which would later be known at the National Woman's Party (NWP), was set up by Mabel Vernon in Delaware.
Sixteen women from Delaware, including Annie Arniel and Florence Bayard Hilles, were among those who were arrested.
The first women's rights convention in Wilmington, Delaware was held on November 12, 1869, with speakers Thomas Garrett and Lucy Stone.
[2] On January 25, 1881, Stuart, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton addressed the General Assembly on women's suffrage.
[4] The next year, organizers Henrietta G. Moore and Mary Garrett Hay came to Delaware to help continue suffrage work in the state.
[1] That same year, anti-suffragist Emily Bissell spoke to the United States Congress against women's suffrage.
[14] She pioneered new tactics in Delaware to support women's suffrage, such as holding "open-air rallies and speeches.
[22] In 1915, Vernon and Edna Latimer toured Delaware in a car donated by Hilles and dubbed the "Votes for Women Flyer.
[24] The 16 suffragists were charged with "blocking traffic" and were to choose between paying a large fine or spending 60 days in jail.
[28] In 1918, munitions workers Hilles and Catherine Boyle tried to meet with President Wilson to urge him to support women's suffrage.
[29] As munitions workers, Hilles and Boyle wanted to stress that they deserved the right to vote, since they contributed to WWI, too.
[30] In May 1918, a petition drive was kicked off in Wilmington by women who attended a "subscription luncheon" at Hotel DuPont.
[16] Carrie Chapman Catt, Maud Wood Park, and Narcissa Cox Vanderlip were featured speakers.
[31] In January 1919, NAWSA organizer, Maria McMahon, came to set up suffrage headquarters in Dover, Delaware.
[31] As women in the state started to see evidence that the federal amendment would pass the U.S. Congress, suffragists set up a committee to organize campaigning efforts.
[32] Suffragists suggested in their campaigns that politicians who gave them the right to vote would be rewarded with a faithful base of voters.
[34] When the General Assembly convened the special session they were considering both women's suffrage and a tax issue for the schools.
[38] Behind the scenes, a personal fight between a state representative, Daniel Layton and the governor, used women's suffrage as a proxy.
[39] Layton, who personally had supported women's suffrage in the past, decided to fight it in order to anger the governor.
[41] Du Pont was brought back to Delaware to convince members of the General Assembly to support women's suffrage.
[42] Layton's group was resentful of du Pont's interference and did not want "rich outsiders" making decisions in local government.
[42] Cars were decorated, women marched, and gave speeches all day in front of the State House and the Republican convention hall.
[45] John E. "Bull" McNabb "assaulted" suffrage supporters in the Assembly who were delaying the vote and anti-suffragist Mary Wilson Thompson egged him on.
[46] McNabb also expressed racist ideas about women's suffrage, which Emma Gibson Sykes called out in a Sunday Morning Star editorial.
[47] Thompson's influence in the House of the General Assembly kept the majority of the representatives from supporting women's suffrage.
[54] Members of the group felt that gaining women's suffrage would help improve racial equality.
[47] Among the sixty women who approached NWP about the issue were Dunbar Nelson, Stubbs, and Mary J Johnson Woodlen.
[15] One prominent anti-suffragist in Delaware, Mary Wilson Thompson, wrote that when women voted, it "cheapened womanhood.
[60][61] Another wealthy, independent woman who opposed women's suffrage was Emily Bissell who already had the ear of legislators through her own influence.
