In June the first of the open-air meetings that later became so important a feature of the campaign was held on the Common at Bedford. The speakers were Mrs. FitzGerald, Mrs. Leonora S. Little, Mrs. Mary Ware Dennett, Mrs. Katharine Dexter McCormick and Mrs. Crowley. The attendance was small; people were shy at first of seeming to countenance such an innovation but the crowds grew as the meetings continued and it was found to be the best if not the only way to reach the mass of voters. A summer campaign of 97 open-air meetings was held, the speakers traveling mainly by trolley, covering a large part of the State and reaching about 25,000 persons.[82] Suffrage buttons and literature were distributed, posters put up, and sometimes mammoth kites flown to advertise the meetings. Mrs. H. S. Luscomb had presented a kite big enough to hold up a banner six feet wide by forty deep. The campaigners were resourceful. At Nantasket, when forbidden to speak on the beach, they went into the water with their Votes for Women banner and spoke from the sea to the audience on the shore. 1910. Among the speakers at the Festival in May were Mrs. Frances Squire Potter, former Professor of English at the University of Minnesota; Professor Max Eastman of Columbia University, secretary of the New York Men's League for Woman Suffrage, and Professor Henry S. Nash of the Episcopal Theological School. At the State annual meeting in Lowell, October 27, 28, Philip Snowden, M. P., of England was a speaker. In connection with the convention Mrs. Park spoke before the Woman's Club; Rabbi Fleischer before the Board of Trade; Miss Alice Carpenter at the Congregational Church in Tewksbury; four factory meetings were held; the suffrage slides were exhibited twelve times at the Merrimac Theater; Miss Foley and Miss Anne Withington addressed seven trade unions; 27,000 fliers were distributed and four street meetings held.