Oregon Woman Suffrage History Month to Month

January 1912: First Meetings of the Suffrage Year

January 1912 was a very active time for suffrage organizing in Oregon. Suffrage workers wanted to gain the vote and worked to establish organizations that would speak to specific groups of male voters.

That month several vital organizations formed: the Men’s Equal Suffrage Club, led by lawyer William M. “Pike” Davis; the Portland Equal Suffrage League, organized by Josephine Hirsch; and the Portland Woman’s Club Suffrage Campaign Committee led by Esther Pohl Lovejoy, Sarah A. Evans, Elizabeth Eggert, and Grace Watt Ross. The Oregon Federation of Labor endorsed woman suffrage with a unanimous resolution and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union lent its support to the cause.

The Oregon State Equal Suffrage Association had weathered many storms; it’s leaders would continue to organize across the 1912 at the same time that these other groups worked for the votes for women cause. The group held its first meeting of 1912 on January 24. Abigail Scott Duniway presided and a cross-section of suffrage leaders spoke. “Opponents will be asked to speak,” the Oregon Journal noted, “and both men and women are cordially invited to be present.

OSESA Meeting

First Meeting of the Oregon State Equal Suffrage Association for 1912, Oregon Journal, January 23, 1912, 12.

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Posted by history class on 01/01 at 12:00 PM
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