Miss Laura Clay, member of its
executive committee from Kentucky, issued a call to the suffragists of
that State to attend this convention for the purpose of organizing a
State association. Accordingly delegates from the Fayette and Kenton
county societies met and organized the Kentucky Equal Rights
Association. The following officers were elected: President, Miss
Clay; vice-presidents, Mrs. Ellen Battelle Dietrick, Mrs. Mary B.
Clay; corresponding secretary, Mrs. Eugenia B. Farmer; recording
secretary, Miss Anna M. Deane; treasurer, Mrs. Isabella H. Shepard.

The second annual convention was held in the court house at Lexington,
Nov. 19-21, 1889, with officers and delegates representing seven
counties. The evening speakers were Mrs. Clay, Mrs. Josephine K. Henry
and Joseph B. Cottrell, D. D. A committee was appointed, Mrs. Henry,
chairman, to present the interests of women to the approaching General
Assembly and the Constitutional Convention. (See Legislative Action
for 1890.)

The next annual meeting took place in Richmond, Dec. 3, 4, 1890. Mrs.
Sarah Hardin Sawyer was asked to prepare a tract on co-education,
which proved of great assistance in opening the colleges to women. The
evening speakers were Mrs. Shepard, Mrs. Henry and the Rev. John G.
Fee, the venerable Kentucky Abolitionist.

The fourth convention was held in Louisville, Dec. 8-10, 1891, and was
addressed by the Rev. Anna Howard Shaw and the Rev. Dr. C. K. J.
Jones.

The fifth annual meeting convened in Richmond, Nov. 9, 10, 1892.[279]
Mrs. Lida Calvert Obenchain's paper, "Why a Democratic Woman Wants the
Ballot," was afterwards widely circulated as a leaflet. The evening
speakers were Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby of Washington, D. C., and Dr. J.
Franklin Browne.

The General Assembly of 1892 was in session most of that year and some
months in 1893, as there was a vast amount of business to be done in
bringing all departments of legislation into harmony with the new
constitution. During all this time the State association was busy
urging the rights of women; and at its sixth convention, held in
Newport, Oct. 17-19, 1893, was able to report that a law had been
secured granting a married woman the power to make a will and control
her separate property. Among the speakers was the Rev. G. W.
Bradford.

The annual meeting took place in Lexington, Oct. 24-26, 1894. The most
encouraging successes of any year were reported in the extension of
School Suffrage