The Political Equality League
In the late 1870s, efforts to add a Women's Suffrage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution had failed. It took time for proponents to build new momentum. By the 1890s, mention of the subject again appeared with some frequency in the press, in part because suffrage had been granted to women in other countries, such as Australia.
Across America, a network of local support groups was coalescing. This organized yet "grass roots" approach tapped into regional and national suffragist resources, providing even small towns with speakers and informative printed literature. The earliest instance I have found of this network's reaching Hicksville dates from 1911:
Huntington Long-Islander, June 23, 1911
A few notes:
- Mrs. Belmont was the sister-in-law of August Belmont Jr., who had lost the battle for the trolley franchise that then was about to link Hicksville to towns as far west as Flushing; v. Ancient Hixtory August 2018.
- She previously was married to Willie K. Vanderbilt of racing fame; v. Ancient Hixtory February 2019
- Brookholt was the name of the O. H. P. Belmont estate in East Meadow.
Alva Belmont was an ideal person to promote the suffragist cause; she was locally prominent, respected, wealthy, and widowed. She could give the cause all the time and money she wished, and she could lead by example, encouraging other women to do the same in their own respective towns. People like Alva Belmont made the suffragist cause contagious.
We cannot tell with certainty what followed her June appearance, but there likely were many telephone calls, invitations to tea, and planning sessions throughout the summer and autumn. Come December, a coordinated Nassau County Women's Suffrage Campaign began, with meetings held in Farmingdale, Mineola, Oyster Bay, Hicksville, and several other towns during the first half of December. The coordinator of these meetings likely was Jessie Hardy Stubbs, well-known women's suffragist and pacifist who traveled from coast to coast. In a few months she would hike from Manhattan to Albany, to present a letter in support of women's suffrage to the Governor.
Evidently, Stubbs found a willing audience in Hicksville. She returned eight days after her first visit, sat down with a group of interested volunteers, and Hicksville's chapter of the Political Equality League was formed. Its President was Johanna Taliaferro - like Alva Belmont, Taliaferro was locally prominent, respected, wealthy, and widowed. Note that the new chapter's Lydia Kraemer was already the head of the local Women's Christian Temperance Union, a group which favored women's suffrage.
Huntington Long-Islander, January 5, 1912
Publicity photo for a Brooklyn leaflet campaign;
rooftop of the Academy of Music, c.1910
Wikipedia Commons
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