With the hope of arousing suffrage sentiment, classes were formed under the auspices of the State association to study political science; Mrs. Susan S. Fessenden of Massachusetts was employed to organize clubs in the State; requests were sent to all the clergymen of Philadelphia to preach a sermon or give an address on Woman Suffrage; and prizes of $5, $10 and $15 were offered for the three best essays on Political Equality for Women, fifty-six being received.
A Yellow Ribbon Bazar was held in Philadelphia in 1895, the net proceeds amounting to over $1,000. Miss Mary G. Hay, Miss Yates and Miss Gregg were then employed as organizers, and were very successful in forming clubs. There are now sixteen active county societies.[418]
Legislative Actions and Laws: In 1885 Miss Matilda Hindman was sent to Harrisburg to urge the Legislature to submit an amendment to the voters striking out the word "male" from the suffrage clause of the State constitution. As a preliminary, 249 letters were sent to members asking their views on the subject; 89 replies were received, 53 non-committal, 20 favorable, 16 unfavorable. Miss Hindman and eleven other women appeared before a Joint Committee of Senate and House to present arguments in favor of submitting the amendment. A bill for this purpose passed the House, but was lost in the Senate by a vote of 13 ayes, 19 noes. This was the first concerted action of the Pennsylvania suffragists to influence legislation for women. A legacy of $1,390 from Mrs. Mary H. Newbold aided their efforts to secure the bill.
Political conditions have been such that it has been considered useless to try to obtain any legislative action on woman suffrage, and no further attempts have been made. To influence public sentiment, however, mass meetings addressed by the best speakers were held in the Hall of the House of Representatives during the sessions of 1893, '95, '97 and '99.
In 1897 and 1899 the suffragists made strenuous attempts to secure a bill to amend the Intestate Law, which greatly discriminates against married women, but it was killed in committee.
Owing to a gradual advance in public sentiment laws have been enacted from time to time protecting wage-earning women; also enlarging the property rights of wives, enabling them to act as incorporators for business of profit, and giving them freedom to testify in court against their husbands under some circumstances.
In 1891 a number of influential women decided to form a corporation, with a stock company, for the purpose of building a club house and equipping the same to rent as a business of profit. The charter was refused, because several of the women making application were married. After some delay enough single women were found to take out the letters patent. When incorporated the original number organized the company and built the New Century Club House in Philadelphia, which paid five per cent. to stockholders the first year. One of the members of this board of directors, to save time and trouble, made application to be appointed notary public, but she was refused because the law did not permit a woman to serve. Public attention was thus called to the injustice of these statutes and, after much legislative tinkering, laws were passed in 1893 giving wives the same right as unmarried women to "acquire property, own, possess, control, use, lease, etc." The same year women were made eligible to act as notaries public.
Dower and curtesy both obtain. If there is issue living, the widow is entitled to one-third of the real estate for her life and one-third of the personal property absolutely. If no issue is living, but collateral heirs, the widow is entitled to one-half of the real estate, including the mansion house, for her life, and one-half of the personal estate absolutely. If a wife die intestate, the widower, whether there has been issue born alive or not, has a life interest in all her real estate and all of her personal property absolutely. If there is neither issue nor kindred and no will the surviving husband or wife takes the whole estate.
A husband may mortgage real estate, including the homestead, without the wife's consent, but she can not mortgage even her own separate estate without his consent. Each can dispose of personal property as if single.
As a rule a married woman can not make a contract, but there are some exceptions. For instance, she can contract for the purchase of a sewing-machine for her own use. The wife must sue and be sued jointly with the husband.