was increasing activity each year afterwards. In 1907
the suffragists held a convention and reported their membership
trebled. They secured a suffrage article in the _News Scimitar_
through the courtesy of Mike Connolly, its editor. In 1908 Dr. Shaw
spoke at the Goodwin Hall in Memphis under the auspices of the State
association and a return engagement was secured by the Lyceum Course
the following winter. The third annual convention was held Dec. 15,
1909, in Memphis at the home of the State president, Mrs. J. D. Allen,
and the officers were re-elected. It was reported that a petition had
been sent to Congress for a Federal Amendment and more than 400
letters written, one to President Taft asking him to declare for woman
suffrage and local work had been done. Mrs. E. S. Conser, assisted by
Mrs. Allen and the suffrage club, prevailed upon the Memphis
University Law Department to open its doors to women and Mrs. Conser
became its first woman student. Mrs. Allen attended the national
convention at Seattle, Washington. Mrs. Ittie K. Reno delivered the
first woman suffrage address in Nashville, at the Centennial Club, and
the first one in Chattanooga was given by Miss Margaret Ervin at the
university where she was a student.

In 1910 a league was organized in Knoxville by Mrs. L. Crozier French,
who became its president. In the summer a suffrage debate, affirmative
taken by Mrs. Ford, was held in the Methodist church at Kingston, the
first time the question was discussed in that part of the State and
people came from neighboring towns. Miss Catherine J. Wester, a
Kingston suffragist, had a six weeks' newspaper debate in the
Chattanooga _Times_. A booth was maintained at the Appalachian
Exposition, and 590 names of visitors from Tennessee, Arkansas and
Mississippi were registered in the suffrage booth at the Tri-State
fair in September at Memphis.

The fourth State convention was held at Memphis in the Business Men's
Club Feb. 18, 1911, and the president, Mrs. Allen, reported suffrage
trips to Little Rock, Ark., and Jackson, Miss. Addresses were given by
Attorney Robert Beattie and by H. P. Hanson, vice-president of the
Southern Conference on Child and Woman Labor, who brought word that
the Memphis Typographical Union was on record for woman suffrage. Mrs.
Beattie was elected vice-president and Dr. Madge Patton Stephens
secretary. The Nashville club was organized September 28, with Mrs.
Guilford Dudley president; one at Mo