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<\/a>Seated in the midst of this large group of representative women of Radnor township was the woman to whom, more than any other, the local League of Women Voters owes its organization. For it was Mrs. J.S.C. Harvey, of Radnor, who, on August 23, 1920, held an informal meeting, at her home, of a group then known as the Radnor Township League of Women Citizens, of which she was chairman.<\/p>\nBefore the other nine women had left Mrs. Harvey\u2019s home this name had been changed to that of the League of Women Voters of Radnor Township, one of the first small units to be formed in the United States of the National League of Women Voters.<\/p>\n
The minutes of this first meeting state that \u201cin changing the name and purpose of the organization\u2026 all felt a great and new responsibility, and faced it in a two-hour discussion on how best to meet this responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n
Besides Mrs. Harvey, there were present at this organizational meeting Mrs. F.F. Hallowell, Miss Nancy Hallowell, Mrs. Allyne Martin, Mrs. John Kent Kane and Miss Helen Torpey \u2013 all members of the women\u2019s suffrage organization \u2013 and Mrs. David Paul Brown, Mrs. F.A. Gugert, Dr. Marianna Taylor and Miss Mary L. Walsh as \u201cnew recruits to the cause.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was only three days before this meeting that national suffrage for the women had been won by the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution by 36 states, the required number to make the amendment legal. It was three days after this small local meeting that, on August 26, 1920, Secretary of State Colby signed the Suffrage Proclamation, making valid the 19th amendment. This Proclamation reads as follows:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex.<\/p>\n
\u201cCongress shall have power to enforce this Article by appropriate legislation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first convention of the National League of Women Voters was held in Chicago in February, 1920. This national organization\u2019s first president was Mrs. Maud Wood Park, a woman experienced in working for the passage of legislation. Almost a year before this in the spring of 1919 Carrie Chapman Catt, speaking to the leaders of the National Women\u2019s Suffrage Association, had proposed \u201ca League of Women Voters to finish the fight and to aid in the reconstruction of the nation.\u201d The \u201cfight\u201d to which she referred was the struggle then almost won for national woman suffrage, while the \u201creconstruction of the nation\u201d was that of the country\u2019s need in a critical post-war period.<\/p>\n