Timeline of women's suffrage in Arkansas

1868

• Miles Ledford Langley from Arkadelphia, Arkansas proposes a women's suffrage law at the state constitutional convention.[1]

1869

• The Arkansas Gazette begins publishing women's rights articles.[2]

1870

• January 5: Phoebe Couzins speaks in Little Rock, Arkansas.[1]

1881

• September 10: The Arkansas Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) is formed with Lizzie Dorman Fyler as president.[1]

1885

• AWSA disbands before October 9.[1]

1888

• The Arkansas Equal Suffrage Association (AESA) is organized by Clara McDiarmid.[1]

1889

• Susan B. Anthony campaigns in Helena, Forth Smith, and Little Rock.[2]
• Suffrage journal, the Woman's Chronicle starts publication.[3]

1890

• The Prohibition Party of Arkansas endorses women's suffrage.[4]
• The first women's suffrage parade is held in Little Rock.[5]

1891

• Bill for white women's suffrage is introduced in the Arkansas Senate by Senator E.P. Hill.[2]
• The Arkansas General Assembly passes a law that creates a type of literacy test for voters.[6]

1893

• The Arkansas Senate passes a bill for women's school board suffrage, but it does not pass in the House.[2]
• Arkansas institutes a poll tax.[2]
• The Woman's Chronicle ceases publication.[7]

1895

• Lide Meriwether tours and speaks on women's suffrage in Arkansas.[8]

1899

• A bill to allow women to vote in school board elections and "questions involving moral issues" is introduced by Senator Turner Butler, but fails by 16 to 8.[2]

1903

• The first state convention of the Socialist Party of Arkansas is held in Little Rock. Their platform includes women's equal rights.[2]

1906

• African Americans are excluded from primary elections in Arkansas.[6]

1911

• January: An unusual women's suffrage bill was proposed in the state House.[9]
• March: Suffragists testify on women's suffrage at a Committee meeting hearing.[9]

1913

• The Women's Political Equality League (PEL) begins meeting in the City Hall in Little Rock.[2]

1914

• PEL starts a class for studying contemporary issues and speaking.[10]
• October: Another State Woman Suffrage Association is formed.[10] It is also known as the Arkansas Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA).[11]

1915

• AWSA and PEL provide financial support for the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage and the federal amendment campaign.[2]
• PEL works with the Arkansas Federation of Women's Clubs (AFWC) on a women's suffrage resolution.[2]
• The Washington County Women's Suffrage Association is organized.[2]
• October: State suffrage convention is held in Little Rock.[10]

1916

Women's suffrage rally at the Arkansas Capitol in Little Rock, c. 1917

• Alice Paul comes to Little Rock to organize a branch of the National Woman's Party (NWP).[2]
• April: Carrie Chapman Catt campaigns in Arkansas.[2][12]
• October: State suffrage convention is held in Pine Bluff.[10]

1917

• February: Women gain the right to vote in primary elections.[2]
• Suffragists in the State Suffrage group reorganize as the Equal Suffrage State Central Committee (ESSCC).[13]
• Freda Hogan Ameringer organizes women in Huntington, Arkansas to pay their poll taxes so they can be ready to vote.[2]
• Mabel Vernon campaigns in Arkansas for the NWP.[2]

1918

• April 2: ESSCC holds its first annual meeting.[14]
• April 3: Anna Howard Shaw speaks in Arkansas.[14]
• May: Between 40,000 and 50,000 women vote in the primary election.[14]
• July: A state constitutional convention is held where full women's suffrage is considered, but not added to the final draft.[14]
• July 10: Women delegates are present at the State Democratic convention and a woman's suffrage plank is adopted.[15]

1919

• July 28: Arkansas ratifies the Nineteenth Amendment.[16]
• December 3: The ESSCC dissolves and reforms as the League of Women Voters (LWV) of Arkansas.[9]

• Harper, Ida Husted (1922). The History of Woman Suffrage. New York: J.J. Little & Ives Company.
• Taylor, A. Elizabeth (Spring 1956). "The Woman Suffrage Movement in Arkansas". Arkansas Historical Quarterly. 15 (1): 17–52. doi:10.2307/40027189. JSTOR 40027189 – via JSTOR.