Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/292

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HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

278 HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE other groups ; colored slides of suffrage events were shown and prominent local women opened their homes for social affairs. Much interest was aroused and permanent Springfield headquar- ters were opened soon afterwards. Boston started to organize by wards and invitations were printed in various languages. The first meeting, in Ward 8, arranged by Mrs. Leonard, was attended by nearly 1,000 women and there were speeches in English and Yiddish. A class to train suffrage speakers was started. A suffrage club was organized in the College of Liberal Arts of Boston University. The suffragists sent Alfred H. Brown to help the campaign in the State of Washington. The general sorrow for the death of Julia Ward Howe on October 17 brought support to the suffrage movement. In her later years people had revered her as they revered the flag and all her great influence had been placed unreservedly at the service of this cause. A large memorial meeting was held in Faneuil Hall on December 16. 1911. The State convention was held in Boston October 27, 28, the evening meeting at Tremont Temple addressed by Dr. Shaw and Professor Edward Howard Oiggs. The Boston as- sociation raised $1,100 for the campaigns in Oregon, Kansas, Wisconsin and Michigan and gave Mrs. Park's services to Ohio and Michigan. A Men's League for Woman Suffrage was or- ganized at Harvard University under the presidency of A. S. Olmstead. At the meeting of the New England Association Miss Blackwell was elected president. Mrs. Howe had held the office twenty-six years. Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, one of the few sur- viving pioneers, passed away this year. He had been a champion of women's rights for more than sixty years. When a young minister he spoke for the cause. He signed the Call for the First National Woman's Rights Convention in 1850. He mar- ried Lucy Stone and Henry B. Blackwell in 1855 and prefixed an approving foreword to their published protest against the in- equalities of the marriage laws. He took part in organizing the American Woman Suffrage Association, was its president for a year and an officer in the New England and Massachusetts asso- ciations until his death. For years he was a great power as a