Alina Ashbrook letter to the Franklin County Woman Suffrage Association, October 19, 1914

Alina Ashbrook, a resident of Mingo Junction, Ohio, sent this letter to the Franklin County Woman Suffrage Association on October 19, 1914, to request campaigning materials for her town. She had visited Columbus and had heard about advertising balloons which would be used to endorse women's suffrage, and wanted to display them in Mingo Junction as well. The Franklin County Woman Suffrage Association was formed in 1912, after the Ohio Constitutional Convention elected to bring to a vote the question of removing the words "white male" from the state constitution with regard to voting rights. Headquartered in the Chamber of Commerce building in Columbus, Ohio, the organization put out regular publications, organized public speeches and meetings, distributed literature and held parades in support of the suffrage movement. Women's suffrage in Ohio was defeated in a special election in 1912 and again in 1914 and 1916 before a resolution narrowly passed in 1917 allowing municipal voting by women in Columbus. In 1920, the 19th Amendment passed, extending the vote to women and prohibiting state and federal government from denying suffrage on the basis of sex