in May, when reports from various States are
offered, concerning suffrage work done during the year. The
American Woman Suffrage Association was organized in 1869. Since
its formation it has held its annual conventions in some of the
chief cities of the several States.[111] A meeting was held in
Horticultural Hall, Boston, January 28, 1870, to organize the
Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association.[112]

The Massachusetts Association is the most active of the three
societies named. Its work is generally local though it has sent
help to Colorado, Michigan, and other Western States. It has kept
petitions in circulation, and has presented petitions and memorials
to the State legislatures. It has asked for hearings and secured
able speakers for them. It has held conventions, mass-meetings,
Fourth of July celebrations. It has helped organize local Woman
suffrage clubs and societies, and has printed for circulation
numerous woman suffrage tracts. The amount of work done by its
lecturing agents can be seen by the statement of Margaret W.
Campbell, who alone, as agent of the American, the New England and
the Massachusetts associations, traveled in twenty different States
and two territories, organizing and speaking in conventions.[113]
As part of the latest work of this society may be mentioned its
efforts to present before the women of the State, in clear and
comprehensive form, an explanation of the different sections of the
new law "allowing women to vote for school committees." As soon as
the law passed the legislature of 1879, a circular of instructions
to women was carefully prepared by Samuel E. Sewall, an eminent
lawyer and member of the board of the Massachusetts Association, in
which all the points of law in relation to the new right were ably
presented. Thousands of copies of this circular were sent to women
all over the State.

The Centennial Tea Party was held in Boston, December 15, 1873, in
response to the following call:

The women of New England who believe that "taxation without
representation is tyranny," and that our forefathers were
justified in defying despotic power by throwing the tea into
Boston harbor, invite the men and women of New England to unite
with them in celebrating the one-hundredth anniversary of that
event in Fanueil Hall.[114]

Three thousand people were in attendance, and it was altogether an
enthusiastic occasion and one long to be remembered.

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