Votes for Women Club Records

The Votes for Women Club of Grand Forks was organized on March 1, 1912 as a chapter of the Votes for Women League of North Dakota, headquartered in Fargo, N.D. The Club's first elected officers, constituting the Executive Committee, were: Mrs. Alice Nelson Page, President; Dr. Mae Saunders, Vice President; Miss Ferguson, Secretary; Miss Mary E. McCumber, Treasurer. The Club's objective was to advance the industrial, legal, and educational rights of women, and to secure suffrage to them by appropriate state and national legislation. Membership was open to all who signed the constitution and paid annual dues of twenty-five cents. The Club claimed 207 members. Eligibility for offices was not gender-based. However, all seventeen officers and chairs of the Votes for Women League of North Dakota, and all Grand Forks Club officers, were women. Regular monthly meetings were held at which clergy, university professors, politicians, and other speakers would address suffrage and other women's issues. Members elected officers at annual meetings. The Club hosted women's suffrage booths at state and county fairs, distributed suffrage literature, organized a petition to Congress for the passage of suffragist legislation, and wrote to candidates for political office to ascertain their views on suffrage. The Club became inactive upon North Dakota Governor Frazier's signing of the Susan B. Anthony Federal Suffrage Amendment to the Constitution and its subsequent ratification. Despite some disagreement, a letter of thanks to Governor Frazier for signing the Amendment was voted on and sent. After two years of inactivity, the Club held its last meeting on December 29, 1919.

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