Indiana's First Woman's Rights Convention Sign

The Indiana Woman's Suffrage Association (IWSA) began on October 15, 1851, in

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.Indiana Woman's Suffrage Association. (n.d.). ''Indiana Woman's Suffrage Association Record Book 1851-1886''. Digital image 2005 Indiana Historical Society. All Rights Reserved. IWSA was created for men and women to fight for women's right to vote. The association held annual conventions for 26 years. People traveled from all over the state to find resolutions for the political, social, and financial inequalities for women. The ISWA was first referred to as

American Woman Suffrage Association The American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) was a single-issue national organization formed in 1869 to work for women's suffrage in the United States. The AWSA lobbied state governments to enact laws granting or expanding women's right to vote ...

The Constitution

Article I

This society shall be known by the name of the Indiana Woman's ~~Rights~~ Suffrage Association.

Article II

The officers of this society shall consist of a president, vice president, corresponding and recording secretaries and treasurer, whose duties shall be such as devolve upon such stations, and they shall be elected annually.

Article III

The Secretary, further, shall be requested to report annually upon the general condition of woman and the efforts made for her elevation.

Article IV

Persons shall be appointed at each annual meeting to report upon each of the following subjects: Woman's Labor and Remuneration, Woman's Legal Condition; Woman's Social Position, and Woman's education.

Article V

This society shall meet annually at such time and place as shall hereafter be determined upon.

Article VI

This society does advise the organization of District societies throughout the State.

Article VII

The constitution may be altered or amended at any regular meeting of the society.

The first meetings

October 14, 1851

Morning session

The meeting started off by elected a president, vice president, and secretary. Hannah Hiatt was the first president,

Amanda Way Amanda M. Way (July 10, 1828 – February 24, 1914) was a pioneer in the temperance and women's equal rights movements, an American Civil War nurse, a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church in the 1870s, and a Society of Friends (Quaker) mini ...

was the first vice president, and Henry Hiatt was the first secretary. Hannah Hiatt requested that the new vice president make the opening address of the meeting. During that speech, Amanda M. Way stated that the "object of the meeting, and declaring that unless women demand their rights politically, socially and financially, they will continue in the future as in the past, to be classed with negroes, criminals, insane person, idiots, and infants." Henry B. Wright, who was a great antislavery lecturer, was called for and made a radical, striving speech, after which the convention closed until the next day.

Evening session

Hannah Hiatt called the convention to order. After preliminary business was discussed, Hiatt introduced H. C. Wright. Wright showed the injustice in property laws, inequality of wages, and the insulting cruelty of shutting the doors of the high school and colleges against women.

October 15, 1851

Morning session

Amanda Way started the meeting by reading a letter from Dr. Mary F. Thomas of North Manchester and Elizabeth Matchett of Goshen. They read all of the resolutions for the amendments and after some discussion, there were all adopted. The members of the convention took the position that all class legislation is unjust and that all who are governed by laws should help make those laws. H. C. Wright gave another speech.

Afternoon session

There were speeches given by Joel P. Garris, M. R. Hiatt, H. C. Wright, Henry Hiatt, and others. The members of the association decided to hold another convention in a year. They selected Richmond as the place.

People to remember

People who held positions

President

Notable women who were President * Hannah Hiatt (the first President) * L. W. Vandeburg (Lydia) * Dr. Amelia B. Keller * Anna D. Noland * Helen M. Gougar

Vice president

Notable women who were vice president of IWHA *

* Jane Marrow

Secretary

Notable people who were Secretary of IWHA * Henry Hiatt * Mary B. Birdsall

Influential people

These people signed the Constitution, or made speeches at the meetings

* H. C. Wright (Henry Clark) ** Wright made many influential speeches during the first few meetings. He made a "thrilling speech based upon the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal.' He showed how men had made the laws so that women were little better than slaves, the husband not only owning all the property but the children and the wife too." * Joel P. Harris * G. A. Way * Lydia Davis * M. J. Diggs (Melissa){{Cite book, title=The proceedings of the Woman's Rights Convention, held at Syracuse, publisher=J.E. Masters, year=1852, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-ngEAAAAYAAJ&dq=melissa+J.+diggs+pennsylvania&pg=PA93, pages=93 * Fanny Hiatt * Agnes Cook

References

Women's suffrage advocacy groups in the United States Defunct organizations based in Indiana Organizations established in 1851 Indiana Women's Rights Movement