SLCCHC March Brown Bag Presentation: A Loss Before the Win: The 1915 Woman Suffrage Campaign in STLC

Join us for our March Brown Bag Presentation with Dr. Gaylynn Welch! In 1915, suffragists in New York failed to convince the (male) voters of the state to enfranchise women. Although the 1915 referendum was defeated, the 1915 campaign was an important step to the New York State suffrage amendment victory in 1917. In this presentation, Dr. Gaylynn Welch focuses on suffrage mobilization in St. Lawrence County. Women and men mobilized by forming associations, meeting, speaking, advertising at summer fairs, and driving from town to town to promote the cause. Dr. Welch also explores the relationship between the state leaders who sparked the campaign and the local suffragists who sustained it. About Dr. Gaylynn Welch: Dr. Gaylynn Welch is a lecturer in the History Department at SUNY-Potsdam and teaches a summer course for SUNY-Canton. Her research focuses on relationships between local suffragists and leaders of national suffrage organizations. Her New York History Journal article, “Suffrage at the School House Door: The New York State School Suffrage Campaign and Changing Strategies and Rationales for Women’s Votes,” focuses on the neglected partial suffrage laws that are important but often neglected by historians. Currently, Dr. Welch has been researching the early twentieth-century suffrage movement in St. Lawrence and Franklin counties.