CHAPTER LVIII.
OHIO.[1]
The second Woman's Rights Convention ever held took place at Salem, Ohio, in April, 1850, and such meetings were continued at intervals until the beginning of the Civil War. After the war a State association was formed, but the records of its existence are not available. In the early summer of 1884 Mrs. Rachel S. A. Janney, whose husband was president of the State Agricultural College (now the State University), called a convention in Columbus, at which Mrs. Rosa L. Segur, Mrs. Ellen Sully Fray, Mr. and Mrs. O. G. Peters, Mrs. Elizabeth Coit and family, Mrs. Ammon of Cleveland, and other well-known advocates were present. So few were in attendance, however, that it was thought best not to organize permanently, but Judge Ezra B. Taylor of Warren was chosen president and Mrs. Frances M. Casement, vice-president. Judge Taylor, in declining because of Congressional duties, expressed sympathy and interest in the movement. He was a member of the Judiciary Committee of the U. S. House of Representatives for thirteen years, and through his influence when chairman, in 1890, a majority report in favor of a Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution to enfranchise women was submitted to the House for the first and last time.
Mrs. Casement did very efficient work, especially in the northern part of the State, and as a result a large and enthusiastic meeting was held at Painesville, her home, in May, 1885, and a State association regularly organized. On the list of officers were placed three persons who through all these years have made the enfranchisement of women their paramount work Mrs. Casement, Mrs. Segur of Toledo and Mrs. Coit of Columbus.
- ↑ The History is indebted for this chapter to Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton of Warren, treasurer of the National-American Woman Suffrage Association since 1892 and president of the State association.
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