Anna Blakiston Day served as president of which women's committee?

Home Blogs Question of the Week Anna Blakiston Day served as president of which women's committee?

Anna Blakiston Day served as president of which women's committee?

2013-04-28 12:55

 

Answer: Women’s Committee for the City Party

 

Even before they won the right to vote, a group of women found a way to make their voices heard in Philadelphia. In 1905, they formed the Women’s Committee for the City Party, which worked to clean up the city’s corrupt political landscape and reform city government.

Anna Blakiston Day served as president of the Women’s Committee for the City Party. Wife to architect Frank Miles Day and a member of the Blakiston publishing family, Day was a supporter of reform politics who worked with several other Philadelphia women’s organizations, including the Civic Club and the Committee on the Cause and Cure of War.

The City Party disbanded in March of 1907, but the Women’s Committee (more than 4,000 members strong) continued its work and reorganized with a new name: the Women’s Committee for Good Government (which later changed to the Women’s League for Good Government). It once again saw Day’s involvement, this time as one of the league’s five-member executive committee. In 1911 the group campaigned for the reform candidate for Philadelphia mayor, Rudolph Blankenberg. After Blankenberg’s election, the league continued to assist voters and ardently supported other reform candidates. Day passed away in 1952, and shortly thereafter, an elementary school in Germantown was renamed in her honor.

The Anna Blanchard Blakiston Day papers (#1924) at HSP contain records from the Women's Committee for the City Party and Women's League for Good Government. The collection also contains correspondence, bills and receipts, deeds, papers from Day's estate and the estates of other Blakiston family members.

Image: “Women in Good Government Campaign," newspaper clipping, dated October 21, 1915

Comments

Submitted by Rachel Garber (not verified) on

Very sadly, I have read recent comments on Facebook that express a desire to take away women's right to vote.

Submitted by chutto@hsp.org on

It's hard to believe that after all this time such sentiment still exists. Anna Day and many other early suffragists sacrificed much to obtain the right to vote. No matter what people think or write about today, the efforts of those women will never be in vain.

Add comment

Current state: Draft

Rich-Text Editor

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.