The State convention of 1906 was held in the Friends' Meeting House, addressed by Ellen Spencer Mussey of Washington. In 1907 the convention met in Arundell Hall November 21 and in the Hampden Methodist Church the 22nd. The afternoon program included interesting talks by six Baltimore men—Henry White, Dr. Funck, Dr. Janney, R. Henry Holme, State Forester Albert M. Beasley and the Rev. B. A. Abbott, pastor of the Harlem Avenue Christian Church. A large number of fraternal delegates were present. The Rev. Ida C. Hultin of Boston spoke at both evening sessions.
In 1908 the annual meeting was held in McCoy Hall, Johns Hopkins University, with Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Maud Nathan of New York and Rachel Foster Avery of Philadelphia as speakers. Dr. Lewellys F. Barker presided at the evening meeting. In 1909 the convention took place in the Baltimore Business College, Nov. 23, 24, with Dr. Barton O. Aylesworth of Colorado and the Rev. John Roach Straton of the Seventh Baptist Church as the orators at the evening sessions. Memorial services were held for Henry B. Blackwell. A supper and bazar were pleasant features. In 1910 the convention was held in Osler Hall, Cathedral Street, with both sessions devoted to business. A noteworthy event of the year was the election of Miss Sarah Richmond, a pioneer suffragist, as president of the State Teachers' Association, the first woman to be accorded this honor in the fifty years of its existence. Prizes of $25 were offered for essays on woman suffrage by girls in the high school.
At the convention of 1911 in Heptasophs Hall the California victory of October 11 was celebrated with a banquet attended by 400 men and women, Mrs. Belva A. Lockwood of Washington presiding. The meeting on the next evening was addressed by Miss A. Maud Royden of London on The Economic, Spiritual and Religious Aspect of Woman Suffrage. During the year a leaflet had been issued entitled Opinions of Representative Men of Maryland on Woman Suffrage, through Miss Mary B. Dixon, chairman of publicity, and 600 suffrage posters were placed in the counties. In Baltimore they were made into double faced placards and men were employed to carry them through the business sections. Suffrage petitions and resolutions had been endorsed by the State Federation of Labor, Woman's Christian Temperance Union, Ladies of the Maccabees, Grange and Jewish Council of Women.
The convention of 1912 was held in the Baltimore Business College, the afternoon devoted to discussions of plans of work, reports, etc., followed by a supper and bazar. A report was given of the organization of a Men's League for Woman Suffrage by Dr. Donald R. Hooker, Dr. Funck, Dr. Janney, the Rev. James Gratten Mythen, Dr. Warren Lewis, Jacob M. Moses, S. Johnson Poe, Frank F. Ramey and William F. Cochran. In the evening there was a debate on the enfranchisement of women by the boys of the Polytechnic Institute, Samuel M. North, a member of the faculty and a pioneer suffragist, presiding. At the convention of 1913 the twenty-fourth anniversary of the State association was celebrated in Veteran Corps Hall with a supper, dance and addresses by Laura Clay of Kentucky, Clara Bewick Colby of Washington, Ella S. Stewart of Illinois and Lucy Burns of New York. The convention of 1914 was held in the Royal Arcanum Building. The speakers were Mrs. Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin, Mrs. Nathan of New York, Mrs. Louis F. Post of Illinois and Mr. Western Star. It was reported that at the great suffrage parade held the preceding March in Washington Maryland had the largest delegation.
The business session of 1915 was held in the W. C. T. U. Building and the evening session in the Universalist Church, whose pastor, the Rev. C. Clifton Clark, spoke on the pro-suffrage side. This year a union of all the organizations in the State was effected under the name of the Woman Suffrage Party of Maryland. Mrs. Funck was elected president and served two years.
The annual meeting of 1916 was held on the lawn at the home of Elizabeth Bruce Gwynn; that of 1917 on the grounds of the Young Woman's Christian Association; in 1918 at Tolchester Beach and in 1919 at the home of Evelyn Albaugh Timanus. The workers during these years always were volunteers, who served without financial compensation. The association is indebted for the past ten years to Mary Elizabeth Ward for all stenographic work and to Margaret A. Maddox for most of the publicity work.
Among those who have represented their counties in State conventions are the following: Montgomery county, Mary Bentley Thomas, Sarah Miller, Rebecca Miller, Mary E. Moore, Mary Magruder; Baltimore county, Elizabeth Herring, Josephine E. Smith, Julia F. Abbott, Anna S. Abbott, Ella Warfield, Kate Vanhorn, Mrs. Charles Weed, Mrs. James Green, Mary C. Raspe, Ethel C. Crosby; Harford, Annie H. Hoskins, Lydia Reckord, Eliza Edell; Carroll, Maggie Mehring; Cecil, Alice Coale Simpers; Somerset, Florence Hoge; Caroline, Miss Eliza Messenger; Anne Arundel, Mrs. Wilhelmina Nichols; Howard, Miss Elizabeth B. Wilson.
Baltimore City Club. For more than twenty years this club averaged from four to twenty public meetings annually in theaters, churches and suffrage headquarters. Scores of business and executive meetings were held and sociables, suppers, lawn fetes, banquets, excursions and bazars were given. The club opened the first headquarters in 1902 at 107 West Franklin Street, one of the city's noted thoroughfares. In 1908 they were established on North Gilmore Street, West Baltimore, and in 1912 on the corner of Baltimore and Carey Streets. At both localities the plate glass windows were decorated with pictures of suffrage leaders, cartoons, platforms of political parties and literature; afternoon tea was served and public meetings held at night. It also inaugurated Sunday afternoon meetings which became very popular and it was responsible for bringing to Baltimore many men and women of national and international distinction. The first English "militant" to speak in Baltimore was Mrs. Annie Cobden Sanderson, on My Experience in an English Jail, in January, 1908, in the Christian Temple, the Rev. Peter Ainslie, the pastor, introducing the speaker, who made a profound impression. Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst came next, speaking in Osler Hall on Ideal Democracy, followed by Sylvia Pankhurst and Mrs. Philip Snowden, the latter speaking at the Seventh Baptist Church, the pastor presiding.
In 1909 at a mass meeting one Sunday afternoon in the Lyric Theater an audience of over 2,000 was present, more than half of them men, with Dr. Shaw and Mrs. Florence Kelley the speakers; Judge Jacob M. Moses of the Juvenile Court presided and a number of men of distinction were seated on the platform. Mrs. Catt spoke at a mass meeting in the Academy of Music in March, 1913, at which Miss Eliza H. Lord of Washington, D. C., presided and Senator William E. Borah of Idaho was a guest. Other Sunday afternoon meetings were held in Ford's, Albaugh's, the Garden and the New Theaters with well known speakers. Baltimore clergymen assisting at these meetings, besides those already mentioned, were the Rev. Dr. Frank M. Ellis and the Rev. Dr. J. W. Wills; the Reverends Kingman Handy, Henry Wharton and W. H. Baylor of the Baptist Church; George Scholl and Thomas Beadenkoph of the Lutheran Synod; Richard W. Hogue and George W. Dame of the Episcopal, E. L. Hubbard of the Methodist and Wynne Jones of the Highlandtown Presbyterian Churches.
Through the State Woman Suffrage Association and the Baltimore City Club much educational work was done from 1900 to 1910 in the way of public and parlor meetings. The pictures of suffrage leaders were placed in the public schools. The History of Woman Suffrage and the Life of Susan B. Anthony were given to public libraries. Boys and girls were trained for suffrage debates and prizes given for essays. Subscriptions were solicited for Progress and the Woman's Journal; press work was pushed; opportunities were sought to speak before all kinds of organizations and there was a wide distribution of suffrage literature. Handsomely engrossed resolutions were presented in 1902 to Senator Jacob M. Moses in appreciation of his having introduced the bill in the Legislature to permit women to practice law in Maryland; and to Miss Maddox, the first to be admitted to the bar, a gold pin bearing the State coat-of-arms as an expression of esteem for her onerous work in securing its passage.