Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/655

 

Idaho was admitted into the Union as a State in 1890. Previous to this time there had been practically no work done for woman suffrage in the Territory except that of Mrs. Abigail Scott Duniway of Oregon. Between 1876 and 1895 she gave 146 public lectures, at the same time securing subscribers to her paper, the New Northwest, devoted to the interests of women, and distributing literature. She traveled 12,000 miles by river, rail, stage and buckboard and canvassed many a mile on foot.

In 1887 Mrs. Duniway addressed the Territorial Legislature in behalf of a bill to enfranchise women. In 1889 she appealed to the constitutional convention at Boise to adopt a woman suffrage clause. Judge William H. Claggett, the president, and a majority of the members favored it, but yielded to the fears of the minority that it would endanger the acceptance of the constitution by the voters.

Judge Milton Kelly, founder and for many years editor of the Böise Daily Statesman, was one of the early advocates of the rights of women, as also was his wife, who was, indeed, the pioneer suffragist of Idaho. Mrs. Rebecca Mitchell, president of the State Woman's Christian Temperance Union, was another early laborer. At her request Louis E. Workman introduced a bill into the House of the Legislature of 1893, asking for a constitutional amendment conferring suffrage on women, and it was defeated by only two votes.

In a little country schoolhouse, May 16, 1893, at Hagerman, Lincoln County, the first suffrage society was formed. The teacher, Mrs. Elizabeth Ingram, was president and prime mover, and its members were scattered over a territory of ten miles.