history of the suffrage movement in Tennessee filled only five
pages of the volume preceding this one, which ended with 1900, and
such as there was had been due principally to that dauntless pioneer,
Mrs. Lide A. Meriwether of Memphis, to whom this chapter is reverently
and gratefully dedicated. The first suffrage society was formed in
Memphis in May, 1889, and none of its founders is now living except
Mrs. J. D. Allen of this city. In April, 1894, a society was formed at
Nashville at the home of Mrs. H. C. Gardner by Miss Amelia Territt,
Mrs. Bettie Donelson and a few others but it had no connection with
the one at Memphis. Its members were earnest and capable but it did
not long survive. Through the efforts of the National Association a
State organization was effected in 1897, the year of the Centennial
Exposition in Nashville, and there was a convention in April, 1900,
attended by Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, national president. There had
been no State convention for five years when in 1906, through the
initiative of Miss Belle Kearney of Mississippi a meeting was called
in Memphis of which Miss Laura Clay of Kentucky sends the following
account taken from her scrapbook:

The conference of Southern Women Suffragists was held in Memphis
December 19, 20, the opening session in the morning at the
Peabody Hotel; the afternoon session at the residence of Mrs. J.
O. Crawford and the other sessions at the hotel. Miss Clay was
elected chairman; Mrs. Nannie Curtiss of Texas, secretary. The
meeting included representatives from many of the southern States
and letters were received from "Dorothy Dix," Mrs. Caroline E.
Merrick and Mrs. Sophy Wright of New Orleans; Mrs. Mary Bentley
Thomas of Baltimore; Mrs. Josephine K. Henry of Versailles, Ky.;
Mrs. Eliza Strong Tracey of Houston; Mrs. Mary B. Clay and Mrs.
James Bennett of Richmond, Ky., and Mrs. Key, president of the
North Texas Girls' College. Discussions on aspects of the
suffrage question were led by Miss Kearney, Miss Clay, Mrs.
Meriwether and Mrs. Jennie H. Sibley of Georgia. The conference
was resolved into a committee of the whole to formulate plans for
concerted legislative work in the southern States. A thousand
copies of the resolutions were printed. At this time the State
Equal Suffrage Association was re-organized, with Mrs. Meriwether
honorary president; Mrs. J. D. Allen,