Margaret Foley (March 19, 1875 - June 14, 1957) was a well-known suffragist from Boston who joined Florence Luscomb and other suffragists in Lowell to demonstrate during the 1910 Convention.
Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University
Day 1 MO: October 24
Dows’ Drug Store at 213 Central St is draped in the suffrage colors (flags of purple, white and yellow) and pictures of prominent men in favor of suffrage. It becomes a temporary headquarters for the visiting suffragists.
Open air meetings are held in the evening with suffragists Florence Luscomb and Margaret Foley from 7:45 to 9 PM on the corner of Merrimack and John St. Local papers reported they attracted a “good sized audience.”
Day 2 TU: October 25:
In the night suffragists met with local traders and business at the board of trade.
Annie Withington and Margaret Foley visit and address local labor unions, including the “street railway men” and “building laborers” – they were received well and spoke eloquently according to reports.
Day 3 WE: October 26
Mrs. Maud Wood Park of Boston spoke in the afternoon to the Middlesex Women’s Club at Colonial Hall.
Noon demonstrations were held by Misses Carpenter, Withington, Foley and Luscomb outsides the Massachusetts Mills during workers’ lunch break. Lunch breaks in the mills were short so not many were able to stop and talk, though the suffragists did hand out a good amount of pamphlets and other publications.
That evening Withington, Carpenter and Luscomb addressed large crowd at the corner Merrimack and John Streets once again.
Day 4 TH: October 27
In the first Trinitarian Church on Dutton St., starting at 10:30am, the convention officially began. Meeting resolutions revolved primarily around the recent passing of one Mrs. Julia Ward Howe (died the 17th of October due to pneumonia). She had written the Battle Hymn of the Republic, advocated for abolition (though not equality of the races) and fought for suffrage. She was a former president of Massachusetts Women’s Suffrage Association starting in 1870 and again from 1891-93.
By the end of the meeting, the convention had come to a series of resolutions on which they largely agreed. It was thus resolved:
To revere the memory of Julia Ward Howe, and the best way to memorialize her life was to grant women suffrage.
To rejoice the progress made toward full suffrage across the globe. Full suffrage was already granted in Utah, Colorado, Idaho, Norway, Finland, Bosnia, New Zealand, and Australia. Municipal suffrage (not state but local level enfranchisement) was also granted in England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, Kansas, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland, and suffrage to tax paying women in Louisiana, Iowa, Montana, Michigan, and New York State. School suffrage (the ability to vote in local school district elections) by this point was also in effect in more than half the states in the union.
To congratulate English suffragists on passage of suffrage bill for second reading, and to wish it to go for a third and final vote (not until 1918 could English women be elected to Parliament, and only in 1928 were they allowed to vote on equal terms as men).
To honor Women members of Finnish parliament in resisting Russian incursion.
To protest New York legislation making punishment for women harsher for certain crimes.
To pledge to continue until all women have suffrage.
At 1:30 PM lunch was served in the vestry, with sessions resuming at 2:30 PM.
Philip Snowden, an English Member of Parliament (MP), spoke at Colonial Hall as a special guest with an address titled “The Fate of the Woman Suffrage Bill in England and the Conciliation Committee.” English and American suffragists watched one another’s progress closely and when possible collaborated.
Day 5 FR: October 28
A reception for the convention’s delegates and their friends was held at the house of one Mrs. H. L. Tibbetts on Belmont Ave and Mansur St. from 4 – 6 PM.
A campaign on the South Common meeting in the evening with large crowd closed out the convention with large demonstrations, speakers and celebrations.
Afterwards, Foley and Withington spoke with the local Plumbers association. Even after the convention ends, their work does not stop!
