Description: W.M. Rupert wrote this letter on October 7, 1914, in response to a letter he received. He explained that although he was an ordained minister, he had been working as a salesman for six years. However, he said he would gladly speak on behalf of temperance and the women's suffrage movement. He believed that he would be able to deliver a better speech and draw a larger crowd on account of the fact that he was a working man. He said he would be pleased to speak in any type of settlement in Ohio, and he would pay his own expenses if the organization (the Franklin County Woman Suffrage Association) would provide the rooms and announce his speaking engagements. He requested rooms along car lines in order to be able to show the people what women have done. The Franklin County Woman Suffrage Association was formed in 1912, after the Ohio Constitutional Convention elected to bring to a vote the question of removing the words "white male" from the state constitution with regard to voting rights. Headquartered in the Chamber of Commerce building in Columbus, Ohio, the organization put out regular publications, organized public speeches and meetings, distributed literature and held parades in support of the suffrage movement. Women's suffrage in Ohio was defeated in a special election in 1912 and again in 1914 and 1916 before a resolution narrowly passed in 1917 allowing municipal voting by women in Columbus. In 1920, the 19th Amendment passed, extending the vote to women and prohibiting state and federal government from denying suffrage on the basis of sex. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: MSS1025_B01F08_03_01
Subjects: Women -- Suffrage; Social movements; Franklin County Woman Suffrage Association; Public speaking
Places: Newark (Ohio); Licking County (Ohio);