Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/979

 

Rhode Island was one of the pioneer States to form a woman suffrage association. On Dec. n, 1868, in answer to a call signed by a large number of its most distinguished men and women, a successful meeting was held in Roger Williams Hall, Providence, and Mrs. Paulina Wright Davis was elected president of the new organization. Many series of conventions in different parts of the State were held between 1870 and 1884, at which the officers and special speakers presented petitions for signatures and prepared for legislative appeals.

In 1884, by unanimous vote of the Assembly, the State House was granted for the first time for a woman suffrage convention. Four sessions were held in the Hall of the House of Representatives, and Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, Henry B. Blackwell, William Lloyd Garrison, Mary F. Eastman and others addressed great throngs of people who filled the seats, occupied all the standing room and overflowed into the lobbies.

Up to the present date this association has held an annual convention in October, a special May Festival with social features in the spring, and from one to four meetings each intervening month. These have been rendered attractive by papers and addresses from the members and by public speakers of ability from different parts of the United States and from other lands. In addition to this active propaganda special organizers have been secured from time to time to canvass the State and win intelligent support for the cause.

The association has had but three presidents — Paulina Wright Davis for the first two years, Elizabeth Buffum Chace from 1870 until her death in 1899, aged ninety-two, and Ardelia C. Dewing,