Florida Women Get the Vote

Florida women worked long and hard to secure the right to vote. In 1912 Mrs. Roselle Cooley, Miss Frances Anderson, and a few other energetic women in Jacksonville organized the Florida Equal Franchise League. The idea spread to other communities, and in 1913 a small group of suffragists from all parts of the state, led by Dr. Mary Safford, met at Orlando and organized the Florida Equal Suffrage Association. This organization carried on the main fight for woman suffrage in Florida. It was composed of twenty-eight local leagues, five of which were men’s leagues. They were organized between June 1912 and November 1920 in thirteen different counties. Apathy among the women was such, however, that total membership in all these leagues never exceeded 1,000. Sympathizers in other communities carried on some suffrage activities but never formed organizations