deal of the time, was supposed to be from New England, because she wore her hair short. It turned out, however, that she was from New Orleans and was a cousin of Jefferson Davis. The announcement of this fact caused her to be received by the audience with roars of enthusiasm.
The Atlanta papers devoted columns every day to friendly reports and innumerable portraits. Ministers of different denominations opened the convention with prayer and their pulpits afterwards for addresses by the ladies. Some of the best people of the city took visitors into their homes, entertaining them hospitably and delightfully, and showing them what a Southern home is like. The national officers and speakers were entertained by the Georgia W. S. A. at the Aragon, and the State officers generously insisted upon taking almost the entire expenses of the great convention upon their own young shoulders. These "Georgia girls' devoted unlimited time, thought and work to getting up the convention, and then effaced themselves as far as possible. ....[1]
Perhaps no one person did more, unintentionally, to promote the enthusiasm of the convention than the Rev. Dr. Hawthorne, a Baptist preacher. He had felt called upon to denounce all woman suffragists from his pulpit, not only with severity but with discourtesy, and had been so misguided as to declare that the husbands of suffragists were all feeble-minded men. As the average equal rights woman is firmly convinced that her husband is the very best
man in the world, this remark stirred the women up to a degree of wrath which no amount of abuse leveled against themselves would have aroused. On the other hand, the Atlanta people, even those who were not in favor of suffrage, felt mortified by this unprovoked insult to their guests, and many of them took occasion in private to express their regret. Several speakers at the convention criticised Dr. Hawthorne's utterances, and every such allusion was received with warm applause by the audience. ....At the beginning of the convention four announcements were made which added much to the general good cheer—that South Australia had followed the example of New Zealand in extending Full Suffrage to women; that the Supreme Court of Ohio had pronounced the School Suffrage Law constitutional; that the Governor of Illinois had filled a vacancy on the Board of Trustees of the State University by appointing a woman; that the Idaho Legislature had submitted a woman suffrage amendment.
The most perfect arrangements had been made for the meetings, and the novelty of the occasion attracted large crowds, but
- ↑ The three sisters, Claudia Howard Maxwell, Miriam Howard Du Bose and H. Augusta Howard, who as delegates at Washington the previous winter had invited the association to Atlanta, bore the principal part of these expenses and were largely responsible for the success of the convention.
