Woman's Suffrage Association of Dayton and Montgomery County

The years of the progressive era, from 1900 to 1917, were about to include many political, economic and social reforms in American life. The "Woman Suffrage" movement was one of these reforms, for progressives viewed it as a "viable means of achieving significant social reform". The term is applied to the right of a woman to vote for candidates for "public office and on all public questions, and to serve as elected government officials".

In the United States, the first great political movement in which women played a leading role after the American Revolution was the Abolitionist movement of the first half of the 19th century. Prominent women such as Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Stanton organized in 1848 the first Woman's Rights Convention which opened at Seneca Falls, New York, and held its concluding sessions at Rochester, New York. This and succeeding conventions over the next decade received the support of many prominent males such as Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, and witnessed the development of the celebrated collaboration between Mrs. Stanton and Susan Bronwell Anthony. Their joint leadership of the struggle for Woman Suffrage contributed greatly to the furtherance of the movement.

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