[208] Near the end of the campaign Miss Mary Swain Wagner from New York organized the American Suffragettes, a short-lived society, with Miss Martha Heide as president, and it arranged a mass meeting in Milwaukee with Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst of England as the principal speaker.
[209] A unique automobile tour was made by Mrs. McCulloch and her husband, Frank McCulloch, both prominent lawyers in Chicago, and their four children, who devoted their annual vacation in the summer of 1912 to a tour through Wisconsin, the eldest son driving a big car, Mr. and Mrs. McCulloch making suffrage speeches at designated points and the three younger children enjoying the outing.
[210] After 1913 annual conventions were held as follows: 1914, Milwaukee, speakers at evening meeting, Mrs. Pethick Lawrence of England and Rosika Schwimmer of Hungary; 1915, Milwaukee; 1916 (postponed to January, 1917, at the time of the legislative session), Madison; 1917, Milwaukee, Mrs. Nellie McClung of Canada speaker; 1918, no convention because of the war.
[211] The officials from 1913, not already mentioned, were as follows: Vice-presidents: Miss Zona Gale, Dr. Jean M. Cooke, Mrs. Wm. Preston Leek, Mrs. Victor Berger, Mrs. Isaac Witter, Mrs. Frank Thanhouser, Miss Harriet F. Bain; corresponding secretaries: Mrs. W. M. Waters, Mrs. Joseph Jastrow, Mrs. James L. Foley, Mrs. Glen Turner, Mrs. Charles H. Mott, Mrs. H. F. Shadbolt; recording secretaries: Mrs. H. M. Holton, Mrs. A. J. Rogers; treasurers, Miss E. E. Robinson, Mrs. Harvey J. Frame; auditors: Miss Gwendolyn B. Willis, Miss M. V. Brown, Mrs. Louis Fuller Hobbins, Miss Amy Comstock, Mrs. A. W. Schorger, Mrs. H. A. J. Upham, Mrs. Sarah H. Van Dusen. Mrs. A. J. Birkhauser.
CHAPTER XLIX.
WYOMING.[212]
Wyoming was the pioneer Territory and the pioneer State to give full suffrage to women. It is an interesting fact that the women did not find it necessary to have a Territorial or State Suffrage Association, or even a convention except the one during the campaign for Statehood in 1889-90. This rare situation is explained by the fact that universal suffrage came to the women in the newly organized Territory in 1869 without any general demand for it but through the efforts of a very few progressive men and women. [[History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV, page 994.]] When the Constitutional Convention was preparing for Statehood in 1889, holding its sessions in Cheyenne, the women of the Territory held a convention there in order to pass resolutions asking that the constitution should contain an article granting to the women a continuation of the right of suffrage which they had possessed for twenty years. This was granted and both men and women voted on the constitution, which was adopted by a three-fourths majority of the votes cast. The fact that there was no women's association for suffrage or for political purposes was at times a serious handicap to women of other States, who were not able to appeal to an organized body for an endorsement of woman suffrage or related subjects.
In 1901 and at subsequent dates by joint resolution of both Houses of the Legislature a strong appeal was sent to Congress to submit the Federal Suffrage Amendment. On Feb. 14, 1919, a joint resolution was passed and signed by Governor Robert D. Carey commemorating the granting of woman suffrage in Wyoming, Dec. 10, 1869, by making this date each year Wyoming Day, "to be observed by appropriate exercises commemorative of the history of the Commonwealth and the lives and work of its pioneers."