Women's suffrage in Rhode Island
This group petitioned the Rhode Island General Assembly for an amendment to the state constitution to provide women's suffrage.
The suffrage movement gained more publicity from Alva Belmont, who hosted a well-attended series of lectures at her Marble House mansion in 1909.
Belmont, who also funded the work of Alice Paul, helped initiate a 1915 cross-country trip to deliver a petition to President Woodrow Wilson and Congress.
In 1915, pro-suffrage governor, Robert Livingston Beeckman, helped initiate the efforts to pass a presidential suffrage bill.
[1] Even though the rebellion was a call for equal suffrage for men, women were very involved in "political agitation on behalf of disenfranchised males.
[4] Several women had significant roles both during and after the rebellion, including Francis Harriet Whipple Green, Almira Howard, Abby Lord, Ann Parlin, and Catherine Williams.
[9] On October 23, 1868, suffragists, Elizabeth Buffum Chace and Davis, attended the organizational meeting of the New England Woman's Suffrage Association (NEWSA).
[11] Members of RIWSA immediately began work on petitioning the Rhode Island General Assembly for a women's suffrage amendment to the state constitution.
[8] In 1884, the Rhode Island General Assembly voted to allow RIWSA to hold a women's suffrage convention in the Old State House.
[13] After the defeat of the amendment, Henry B. Blackwell suggested that suffragists in Rhode Island lobby for suffrage in presidential elections.
[3] In 1874, Anna E. Aldrich, Elizabeth C. Hicks and Abby D. Slocum were all successful in running for seats on the Providence School Committee.
[14] Blackwell brought up the idea again in 1902 and by 1903, a petition led to a bill for presidential suffrage in the Senate of the General Assembly.
[20] The fact that the press "accounts were dignified and accurate" was important because it differed from the usual ridicule that suffragists often received.
[23] In the fall of 1915, Algeo continued to reach out to Black women in the state through a reorganized Woman Suffrage Party group.
[17] In 1915, Belmont, working with the Congressional Union (CU), helped Paul get a 50,000 name petition from California to the United States Congress and the President.
[27] Belmont was in contact with two Swedish-American suffragists, Ingeborg Kindstedt and Maria Kindberg who were already in San Francisco for the Women Voters Convention and were going to buy a car and drive back to Rhode Island.
[27] Sara Bard Field was the CU representative and did the press events as they traveled across the country, starting out on September 15.
[29] Suffragists in Rhode Island fought for the bill, bringing in legislators from states where women already had the vote to testify in front of the assembly.
[30] In February and March 1917, Elizabeth Upham Yates was teaching suffrage schools at the RIESA headquarters to prepare the new women voters.
[31] In August 1917, Carrie Chapman Catt and James Henry Darlington spoke at a women's suffrage event in Newport.
[37] Another member of the family, Mary Lippitt Steedman, was also opposed to women's suffrage; but later voted, became active in politics and supported the Equal Rights Amendment.
