Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
On Feb. 12, 13, 1917, officers of the National Association held a
suffrage school in Atlanta. When the Legislature assembled in June all
the members found on their desks a notice that bills granting
Municipal suffrage to women, also full suffrage, and one to raise the
age of consent from 10 years to 18 would be introduced. The State
association sent the national suffrage organ, the _Woman Citizen_, for
a year to the United States Senators and fourteen Representatives in
Congress; to the members of the Legislature and all State officials.
The Atlanta association again conducted a three months' suffrage
school. The State convention in December in the Assembly Hall of the
Piedmont Hotel closed with a luncheon at which many prominent men and
women were present. Representatives John C. White and John Y. Smith at
that time pledged themselves to introduce and work for suffrage bills.
During this and the following year the suffrage associations did their
full share of war work. Mrs. McLendon represented the State
association on the Women's Council of National Defense, and Mrs.
Martin, first vice-president, was chairman of the State
Americanization Committee.
In 1918 the Parent-Teacher Association adopted strong suffrage
resolutions. The Baptist and Methodist churches South granted laity
rights to women. State suffrage headquarters were deluged with
requests for literature by educational institutions for debates. The
State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Professor M. L. Brittain,
had been an advocate of votes for women many years. The Atlanta
_Journal_ gave the State association a column in its Sunday issues,
which Mrs. Martin edited. Raymond E. White wrote a number of fine
suffrage editorials for the _Constitution_. In July the Hearst papers
circulated a petition for a Federal Suffrage Amendment and the Atlanta
association secured 5,000 names and other auxiliaries 1,000.
On May 3, 1919, a progressive city Democratic Central Committee gave
Atlanta women the right to vote in the Municipal primary election to
be held September 3. A Central Committee of Women Citizens was at once
elected at a mass meeting of women to see that they registered and
nearly 4,000 did so, paying one dollar for the privilege.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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