The State Campaigns.-Discouraged by the outcome of the national cam-paign,suffragists turned to the voters of the individual states and sought the ballot at their hands.Gains by this process were painfully slow.Wyoming,it is true,while still a territory,granted suffrage to women in 1869and continued it on becoming a state twenty years later,in spite of strong protests in Congress.In 1893Colorado established complete political equality.In Utah,the third suf-frage state,the cause suffered many vicissitudes.Women were enfranchised by the territorial legislature;they were deprived of the ballot by Congress in 1887;finally in 1896on the admission of Utah to the union they recovered their for-mer rights.During the same year,1896,Idaho conferred equal suffrage upon the women.This was the last suffrage victory for more than a decade.
The Suffrage Cause in Congress.-In the midst of the meager gains among the states there were occasional flurries of hope for immediate action on the federal amendment.Between 1878and 1896the Senate committee reported the suffrage resolution by a favorable majority on five different occasions.During the same period,however,there were nine unfavorable reports and only once did the subject reach the point of a general debate.At no time could anything like the required two-thirds vote be obtained.
The Changing Status of Women.-While the suffrage movement was lag-ging,the activities of women in other directions were steadily multiplying.Col-lege after college-Vassar,Bryn Mawr,Smith,Wellesley,to mention a few-was founded to give them the advantages of higher education.Other institutions,especially the state universities of the West,opened their doors to women,and women were received into the professions of law and medicine.By the rapid growth of public high schools in which girls enjoyed the same rights as boys,education was extended still more widely.The number of women teachers in-creased by leaps and bounds.
Meanwhile women were entering nearly every branch of industry and business.How many of them worked at gainful occupations before 1870we do not know;but from that year forward we have the records of the census.Between 1870and 1900the proportion of women in the professions rose from less than two per cent to more than ten per cent;in trade and transportation from 24.8per cent to 43.2per cent;and in manufacturing from 13to 19per cent.In 1910,there were over 8,000,000women gainfully employed as compared with 30,000,000men.When,during the war on Germany,the government established the principle of equal pay for equal work and gave official recognition to the value of their services in industry,it was discoveredMrs.Nellie Tayloe Ross,Governor of Wyoming （1925-27）how far women had traveled along the road forecast by the leaders of 1848.
The Club Movement among Women.-All over the country women's societies and clubs were started to advance this or that reform or merely to study literature,art,and science.In time these women's organi-zations of all kinds were federated into city,state,and national associations and drawn into the consideration of public questions.Under the leadership of Frances Willard they made temperance reform a vital issue.They took an interest in legislation pertain-ing to prisons,pure food,public health,and municipal government,among other things.At their sessions and conferences local,state,and national issues were dis-cussed until finally,it seems,everything led to the quest of the franchise.By sol-emn resolution in 1914the National Federation of Women's Clubs,representing nearly two million club women,formally endorsed woman suffrage.In the same year the National Education Association,speaking for the public school teach-ers of the land,added its seal of approval.
State and National Action.-Again the suffrage movement was in full swing in the states.Washington in 1910,California in 1911,Oregon,Kansas,and Ari-zona in 1912,Nevada and Montana in 1914by popular vote enfranchised their women.Illinois in 1913conferred upon them the right to vote for President of the United States.The time had arrived for a new movement.A number of younger suffragists sought to use the votes of women in the equal suffrage states to compel one or both of the national political parties to endorse and car-ry through Congress the federal suffrage amendment.Pressure then came upon Congress from every direction:from the suffragists who made a straight appeal on the grounds of justice;and from the suffragists who besought the women of the West to vote against candidates for President,who would not approve the federal amendment.In 1916,for the first time,a leading presidential candidate,Mr.Charles E.Hughes,speaking for the Republicans,endorsed the federal amendment and a distinguished ex-President,Roosevelt,exerted a powerful in-fluence to keep it an issue in the campaign.