What Difference Does It Make to the Women?" leaflet.

Meredith, Ellis. Leaflet: "What Difference Does It Make to the Women?" [New York: National Woman Suffrage Publishing Company, Inc., ND, but ca. 1913].

Leaflet: 6-1/4" x 7"; printed both sides on off-white stock; union slug present; folded once; lower left corner creased; one nick to left edge; about very good.

Ellis Meredith enumerates ways in which the lack of suffrage affects women. If they think they do not want the vote, they should consider the consequences. First and foremost, women lack equal guardianship of their own children. Meredith recounts how three months of the death of her husband, his young widow bore his child. A few months later, "HIS people came to Denver and took the child home. The father had willed away his unborn child and the mother was powerless.” Women have coequal guardianship of their children in only seventeen states and the District of Columbia; and, in some states, "it is expressly provided that the unborn child can be so disposed of.” Meredith cites specific instances in which corporate or agricultural interests have swayed Congress to appropriate monies, while ignoring issues crucial to women and children.

…when the United States Commissioner of Education asked for an appropriation of $3,000 to study certain conditions of child life, he was greeted with whatever is the Congressional equivalent of Homeric laughter, even while the appropriation committee handed over $15,000 to the pearl button makers for the scientific study of clams… Under the circumstances, who wouldn't be the clam?

The leaflet reprints, in part, an article, which appeared in The Pictorial Review. Ellis Meredith (1862-1936?), journalist and writer, worked to pass Colorado's 1893 amendment giving the franchise to its women. She continued to be active in politics and the woman suffrage movement. She twice served as the vice-chairman of the Democratic State Central Committee and also served as a member of the Election Commission of the City and County of Denver. She wrote articles supporting woman suffrage as well as novels such as The Master-Knot Of Human Fate (1904); Heart Of My Heart (1904); and Under The Harrow (1907). OCLC notes a printing of the leaflet in 1910 and 1913; the format of this leaflet conforms to the 1913 printing. No location is cited for the 1910 printing though it has been microfilmed and only two locations for the 1913 printing. Scarce.

(#5011)

Item ID#: 5011

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