Women's suffrage in Illinois
Frances Willard and other suffragists in the IESA worked to lobby various government entities for women's suffrage.
Women in Chicago and throughout Illinois fought for the right to vote based on the idea of no taxation without representation.
[2] Richardson had heard the women's suffrage speech given by lawyer and editor of the Earlville Transcript, Alonzo Jackson Grover, earlier that year.
[3] When the Civil War broke out, women in Illinois helped to provide supplies to soldiers and hospitals.
[1] Working with the war effort convinced abolitionist, Mary Livermore, that women needed to have the right to vote in order to enact political reform.
[1] The Chicago Tribune made fun of the situation and implied that the women weren't able to properly plan conventions.
[1] Mrs. D. L. Waterman of Sorosis replied to the Tribune, explaining how the conventions had happened at the same time and provided letters between herself and Livermore.
[10] Frances Willard and other members of IWSA lobbied the Illinois Constitutional Convention being held there for women's suffrage.
[13] Judge Bradwell helped pass a rule allowing women to serve on school boards.
[12] In 1879, Willard brought a petition to the General Assembly requesting that women have the right to vote on alcohol-related issues.
[18] The school suffrage bill was written by the WCTU and was introduced in the state Senate by Thomas C. MacMillan where it easily passed.
[18] The school suffrage bill was confusing and led to four different Supreme Court of Illinois decisions to determine the scope of the law.
[20] Also in 1891, Ellen A. Martin found a loophole in the city charter of Lombard, Illinois that could allow her and other women to legally vote.
"[22] Members of the Chicago Teachers' Federation, under the leadership of Margaret Haley and Catherine Goggin, helped raise awareness for women's suffrage.
[23] The Illinois Federation of Women's Clubs (IFWC) started to endorse municipal suffrage bills.
[29] Trout publicized the tours with newspapers who sent journalists by train and trolley to cover the speeches in sixteen different cities.
[30] Along with Trout, Anna E. Blount, Catherine Waugh McCulloch, and others toured the cities in a "suffrage by relay" plan.
[33] One thing Trout discovered while visiting the IESA members in Springfield, was that there was still hostility to women's suffrage.
[27][39] Trout's group practiced drilling and had "cap and baldric" uniforms designed by Clara Barck Welles.
[51] William Randolph Hearst offered the suffragists a chance to publish a suffrage edition of the Chicago Examiner at no cost to any of their organization.
[53] The paper, produced by the suffragists with Antoinette Funk as managing editor, helped raise $15,000 and filled their depleted bank accounts.
[61] During the 1916 Republican National Convention in Chicago, suffragists marched in a "rainy day suffrage parade" which was sponsored by NAWSA.
[62] The end of the march had Carrie Chapman Catt give Senator William Borah the suffrage plank that NAWSA had prepared for the convention.
[72] Illinois suffragist and artist, Adelaide Johnson, unveiled her women's suffrage monument in Washington, D.C., on February 6, 1921.
[5] Prudence Crandall, a white teacher and suffragist who was forced out of Connecticut for teaching African-American students, was an early supporter of Black women's suffrage in Illinois.
[80] Women in the Alpha Suffrage Club created political power that was noticed by the Republican Party who asked them to support their candidate.
[82] A picture of Wells marching between her white friends, Squire and Virginia Brooks, was published in the Chicago Daily Tribune.
[17] One man wrote the state Senate to oppose women's suffrage because he believed that suffragists secretly hated men.
[17] Caroline Fairfield Corbin of Chicago created the Illinois Association Opposed to the Extension of Suffrage to Women (IAOESW) in 1897.
[84] Corbin's message was that women who already liked their position in life would lose their privilege and that suffragists would spread socialism and communism in the United States.
