Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/673

614 1856, by invitation, addressed the second territorial legislature of Nebraska, in Representative Hall, Omaha; and in the year following lectured in Council Bluffs, Omaha, Nebraska City, Glenwood and other towns.

In 1868 Mrs. Martha H. Brinkerhoff made a very successful lecture-tour through the northern counties of Iowa. She roused great interest and organized many societies, canvassing meanwhile for subscribers to The Revolution. In the same year Mrs. Annie C. Savery gave a lecture for the benefit of a blind editor at Des Moines. In February, 1870, by invitation, she responded to a toast at a Masonic festival in that city; and during that and the year following she lectured in several places on woman suffrage, and wrote many able articles for the press.

On April 17, 1869, the "Northern Woman Suffrage Association" was organized at Dubuque. This was the first society in Iowa, though about the same time others were being organized in different localities. J. L. McCreery, in his editorial position, advocated the enfranchisement of woman, and wrote an able paper in favor of the object of the organization. Mrs. Mary N. Adams opened a correspondence with friends of the movement in other parts of the State; Henry O'Connor, Mary A. Livermore and others lectured before the society, thus educating the people into a better understanding of woman's rights and needs. Mrs. Adams not only addressed the home society, but gave lectures before lyceums and educational institutions.

Des Moines has always maintained the most successful organization having a band of earnest women enlisted in the work, and being the capital of the State, where every opportunity was afforded to facilitate their efforts. The liberality of the press, too, aided vastly in moulding public sentiment in favor of the cause. About the earliest work done in that city was in June, 1870, when Hannah Tracy Cutler and Amelia Bloomer (immediately on returning from the formation of the State Society at Mt. Pleasant) held two meetings there—one in the open air on the grounds where the new capitol now stands, on the question of temperance, Sunday afternoon, presided over by Governor Merrill; the other in the Baptist Church, on woman suffrage, the following evening, Mrs. Annie C. Savery presiding.

The Polk County Woman Suffrage Society was formed October 25, and has never failed to hold its meetings regularly each month since that time. Every congress and every legislature have been appealed to by petitions signed by thousands of the best citizens, and it is on record that the senators and representatives of Polk county, with one exception, have always voted in favor of submitting the question of woman's enfranchisement to the electors of the State. When men are talked of for legislative honors they are interviewed by a committee from the society, and pledges secured that they will vote "aye" on any woman suffrage bill that may come before them.

This society has from time to time engaged the services of prominent