19th at 100: Commemorating the Suffrage Struggle and Its Legacies in Northeast Ohio Main MenuIntroductionThe Road to SuffrageThe Struggle at CWRUNotable FiguresAfter SuffrageEinav Rabinovitch-Fox2e56e3d6b4b5f137a53bf7f9d80912f3b70a7958Lauren Dostal628641db4e19e9efe2242726f29ce1860e9c6baeIsabel Fedewa20dc403a88a0fde6c4856bc25beccbae49174777Jewel Yoder Kuhns34ffc591dd6b165c1079a95ab2c0ba1ad4aecf01Kellyn Toombsef2469033dbca72962b50fe7dea33c71c0a45069Abbey Wellsef2cda5c08d1ad75ae8532e3f202032ddc31cee0
Newspaper clipping detailing FDR's visit to WRU
12020-04-30T02:34:32+00:00Lauren Dostal628641db4e19e9efe2242726f29ce1860e9c6bae81Democratic vice presidential candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt visited the WRU campus.plain2020-04-30T02:34:32+00:00Lauren Dostal628641db4e19e9efe2242726f29ce1860e9c6bae
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12020-04-30T01:45:36+00:00Campaigning at Case9plain2020-04-30T03:40:22+00:00College for Women students had been part of the effort to win full suffrage for women since at least 1916, when they formed their Equal Suffrage League. The student chapters of the YMCA and the YWCA assisted students unable to return home to vote, helping them register and request and cast their absentee ballots, “Thus every voter in the University has had a chance to vote without being put to any great inconvenience.” Additionally, student organizations such as The Suffrage Club at the College for Women actively sought the right to vote. The College for Women’s suffrage club was “young but promising” in May of 1919. While the earliest iteration of this organization was established on campus in 1908, several years of inactivity meant that the organization had to be revived in the fall of 1915. Throughout its history, the Suffrage Club had mostly been a small organization, though posters archived by the University show that efforts were made to increase the group's membership.
This artifact gives us a unique glimpse into how members of the campus community engaged with women’s suffrage at the local level. The mock election results tallied the number of student and faculty votes either for or against presidential suffrage in the state of Ohio. As one excited individual printed on the bottom of the page, the mock election yielded “an overwhelming majority for suffrage!”
On a more national scale, Democratic vice presidential candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt visited the Western Reserve University campus in 1920.