Prepared by Julieanne Phillips, Ph. D.

1850	The Ohio Women's Rights Convention was held in Salem, Ohio in an effort to get women's rights into the Ohio Constitution. The effort fell apart with the approach of the Civil War.
1851	May 28-29 saw Sojourner Truth speak on "Ain't I a Women?" at the second annual Ohio Women's Rights Convention in Akron. The Ohio Senate select committee examines the "issue of female franchise" and recommends a state amendment giving women suffrage, but it is defeated in Senate 44-44.
1869	November 24 saw the first national woman suffrage convention held in Cleveland and Lucy Stone (Blackwell) opened the meeting with Mrs. M. Tracy Cutler of Cleveland as the principal speaker. At the closing of the two day session, Susan B. Anthony urged her followers to go home to work tirelessly for the cause and the American Women Suffrage Association (AWSA) was formed with Henry Ward Beecher, president, and William Lloyd Garrison, vice president. The AWSA's purpose being to work through the state legislature's for women's suffrage.
1870	The AWSA again meets in Cleveland for its national meeting.
1873-74	Ohio Constitutional Convention defeats proposed woman suffrage amendment.
1889	Harriet Taylor Upton, President of the Ohio State Women's Suffrage Association, organized 15 chapters around the state.
1894	Ohio women may vote in school board elections and seek school board seats.
1910	Cuyahoga County Women's Suffrage Association and Women's Suffrage Party and the National College Equal Suffrage League were formed. The organizations cooperated to enlist local women in the cause of suffrage. They secured 15,000 signatures for women's suffrage.
1912	August 27- Elizabeth Hauser, director of the Cuyahoga County Women's Suffrage Association, and Harriet Taylor Upton, traveled to the state capital to appeal to the Constitutional Convention for suffrage. The convention voted 76-34 in favor of submitting Amendment 23 for women's suffrage to a special election on September 3. However, the ballot was defeated.
1914	On October 3, the Cleveland Woman's Suffrage Party organized a parade of approximately ten thousand women, men, and children from sixty-four Ohio cities to appeal for support of woman's suffrage.
1917	A bill for women's presidential suffrage was passed, but a referendum was held to invalidate the bill. The suffragists took it to the U.S. Supreme Court, but not in time to stop the referendum, which passed and was signed by Governor Cox.
1919	On June 16, the Ohio General Assembly ratified the 19th Amendment 75-5 and the Senate ratified 27-3. State Representative James Reynolds, disturbed by the legislative maneuvering surrounding the ratification drive, proposed a bill to allow Ohio women to vote for president in 1920 even if the 19th amendment was not ratified. It passed!
1920	April 22 brought the formation of the Cleveland League of Women Voters. August 26 brings the passage of the 19th Amendment.

Sources:
Virginia Clark Abbott, The History of Woman Suffrage and the League of Women Voters in Cuyahoga County, (1949);
Rebecca Freligh, "Key Dates in the Women's Suffrage Movement," The Plain Dealer August 22, 1995;
Marian J. Morton, Women in Cleveland, (1995);
William G. Rose, Cleveland, (1950);
Rosalyn Talerico, "Belle Sherwin," (1995);
David D. Van Tassel and John J. Grabowski, The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, (1987).