Support for Suffrage Broadens

Suffrage Rally at the Old State House
Courtesy of the Arkansas History Commission

Despite the episodic nature of their organizations and journals, Arkansas women continued to host suffrage society meetings and speak out on the issue throughout the 1890's.

Small auxiliary societies periodically sprang up in towns throughout the state, but most of them were short lived. Forrest City, Lonoke, Clarksville, Bebee, and Judsonia all had organizations for a while, and women from these cities as well as from Hot Springs, Fort Smith, Hazen, Hope, Malvern, Stuttgart, Ozark and Rogers attended suffrage conventions in Little Rock. Arkansas suffragettes were affiliated with Susan B. Anthony's National American Women's Suffrage Association and filed annual reports with that organization and sent delegates to national meetings.

The Arkansas suffrage movement went into apparent decline in the first decade of the twentieth century, but in 1911 it again became active and stronger than ever. Miss Mary Fletcher and Mrs. W.P. Hutton became president and vice president respectively of the new Arkansas organization and from then until the passage of the suffrage amendment, Arkansas suffragettes lobbied the legislature heavily. Arkansas suffragettes were never rabble rousers, rather they were middle class white women and suffrage became even more respectable in the early years of the progressive period.

Next: Women Gain the Vote »