Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/770

 754 HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE / and the situation remained unchanged until 1916, when the World War, which brought the full enfranchisement of women in many countries, began to have its effect in Canada. For the large amount of valuable material from which the following brief resume is made the History is indebted to Dr. Augusta Stowe Gullen, a leader of the woman suffrage movement. Its founda- tion was laid in 1878 and following years by the mother of Dr. Gullen, the pioneer woman physician, Dr. Emily Howard Stowe, a friend and contemporary of Susan B. Anthony. 1 Dr. Stowe was a founder and the first president of the Dominion Women's Enfranchisement Association, which secured many privileges for women. The first woman suffrage society was organized in 1883 in the city council chamber of Toronto with the Mayor in the chair. Mrs. Donald McEwan was made president and other officers were Dr. Stowe, Miss Mary McDonnell and Dr. James L. Hughes, afterwards Inspector of Schools. Petitions were sent to the Dominion Parliament and bills presented but when in the late QO'S the Electoral Act was changed to make the voters' list for its members coincide with the lists in the Provinces, the latter became in a large measure the battle ground, although the efforts for a national law were not discontinued. The movement for Prohibi- tion had a strong influence in the granting of woman suffrage in the Provinces and it was hastened by the splendid war work of the women. The first Provincial Legislature to enfranchise women was that of Manitoba, Jan 27, 1916. A convention of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union as early as July, 1902, passed a resolution to press the work for it and later in the year the Labor Party endorsed equal suffrage through its paper, The Voice, and its officers affiliated with the suffrage club. Dr. Amelia Yeomans was a devoted worker. In 1906 when there was a prospect that the Municipal vote would be taken away_from married women property owners, the Liberal party convention made its retention a plank in their platform but the Conservative Legislature abolished it. In 1907 it was restored. In 1913 the women succeeded in getting a full suffrage bill before one House See History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. Ill, page 832.