Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
recognized her right before the great law of human redemption."
The appointment of the usual committees was followed by a symposium on
Municipal Suffrage, at this time a vital issue in Chicago, as a
spirited campaign was in progress to secure a clause giving it to
women in the new city charter which a convention was preparing.[49]
Mrs. Ellen M. Henrotin was to preside but she yielded to Mrs. Florence
Kelley, who had to leave the city, and later took Mrs. Kelley's place
in presiding over the symposium on Industrial Conditions. Professor
Sophonisba Breckinridge (Ky.), of Chicago University, gave an able
address on Municipal Housekeeping, saying in the course of it:
In all the things that make the city a good place in which to
work, the woman is as much concerned as any one. When it comes to
the questions which affect women, she has of course a peculiar
ability to speak, a peculiar responsibility and an obligation to
assume every right necessary to carry out that responsibility. It
is incumbent upon her to secure the power to move in the most
direct way upon the obstacles which lie in her path in the
controlling of conditions.... It is to the housekeeper that I
want to call your attention, rather than to the working woman.
She has to decide how she will use her time, energy and money to
promote the life, health, comfort and welfare of her family. The
little group must live in a house. If she resides in a city, it
is a matter of concern what shall be the structure of it, whether
made of material endangering the household or not; if in an
apartment house, she is concerned in the regulations under which
such houses are built and controlled, in the fire escapes, the
sort of gas, the dimensions of the apartments, the order of the
rooms, the plumbing, etc.
It is obvious that today no woman can be a competent housekeeper
unless she has an intelligent knowledge of these subjects. She
must exercise a control over the ordinances and have something to
say about the men who make these ordinances and who enforce them.
She has not the power she needs as a housekeeper unless she feels
that the officials of the city are as much responsible to her,
although they are not chosen by her alone, as are the domestic
servants whom she does select. Her collective responsibility is
just as great as her individual responsibility.... Women cannot
stop either at the bottom or the top by asking for Municipal
suffrage. If woman is going to be a complete housekeeper she must
be a member of a political group and that leads to the demand for
Municipal, State and Federal suffrage.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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