Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
To educate the men who were to vote upon the question, a State-wide
canvass of voters was begun by Mrs. Crowley, which was carried on up
to election day. A body of from five to seven intelligent women,
informed on the question, re-enforced by local volunteers, called from
house to house, talking to the voter or his wife, leaving suffrage
literature and if possible getting the voter's signature to a card
pledge to vote yes. These canvassers moved from city to city and from
town to town, reaching from one-half to two-thirds of the registered
voters, averaging about 1,500 calls per week and leaving the rest of
the work to be carried on by local women. By election day over 250,000
voters had been interviewed, 100,000 had signed pledge cards and more
than 50,000 others had expressed themselves as favorable.
Much of this work was made possible by the activities of the Ways and
Means Committee of the State Association, under the chairmanship of
Mrs. B. F. Pitman, who, during the many years that she served in that
capacity, repeatedly rescued the association from the verge of debt
and filled up its treasury. Her committee accomplished this by a Bay
State Bazaar held every year at the Copley Plaza Hotel in Boston; by
balls, theatrical performances, outdoor fêtes, pageants and other
entertainments.
As an extra provision for the campaign of 1915, the Bay State Finance
Committee was formed in 1914 by Mrs. Park, chairman, which with the
State association raised and spent about $54,000 in the campaign. This
was exclusive of the money spent by the various leagues and branches
throughout the State, including $10,820 by the Boston Association for
Good Government.
For two years educational work was pushed in every way. It was carried
into the country districts by systematic trolley and automobile trips,
parties of workers carrying out well planned itineraries in different
parts of the State, involving usually from two to four open-air
meetings per day. Audiences were secured in all the small and
scattered places, even the most remote, by postal notices mailed from
State headquarters several days in advance to every registered voter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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