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44 The GUIDE to YELLOW SPRINGS 2019 – 20 YELLOW SPRINGS NEWS Garner’s presentation. Women’s suffrage groups in Dayton, important to both state and national suf - frage movements, were also relatively wel - coming of women of color and immigrants, research by scholar Cynthia Wilkey reveals. And women of color, including figures such as Hallie Quinn Brown, who taught in Dayton public schools and at Wilberforce University, were devoted and effective advocates for women’s suffrage nationally and internationally. An early success in extending enfran- chisement to Ohio women came in 1894, when women were granted the right to vote in school elections. Two statewide suffrage efforts failed, however. In 1912, at the Ohio Constitu - tional Convention, suffragists put forward an amendment to the state constitution that would have granted Ohio women the right to vote. (Such measures had passed in other states, though federal enfranchisement had not.) Ohioans voted down the amendment, while passing other Progressive-era reforms geared to greater regulation of working conditions in the state. Simeon Fess was vice-president of the constitutional convention — and a strong supporter of women’s right to vote. In 1912, he wrote to a female correspon- dent, “You have no need of fears as to my position on the question about which you write. There is agreement on both sides. There is some very effective argument against it. But I shall take the position in favor of enfranchising women.” Suffragists spent $40,000 to pass the amendment, while liquor interests spent a total of more than $600,000 to defeat it, according to an article by scholar Michelle Schweickart. In 1914, suffragists mounted a refer - endum in Ohio, which also failed to pass muster with (male) voters. So Ohio women put their faith in — and hard work toward — the national push for enfranchisement, according to Schweickart. “Ohio suffragists turn their attention to the national suffrage movement because they realize they cannot outspend the liquor interest groups,” she wrote in a time - line summary of enfranchisement efforts in the state. Women’s faith in a federal amend- ment proved justified. By June 1919, both houses of the U.S. Congress had passed the measure. Then the bill went out to the states for ratification. By the evidence of a compendium of let- ters from suffragists themselves, Fess was a major force for ratification in Washington and the states. “I know of no one in the United States Congress whom I feel had been more ready to help suffrage than Dr. Fess,” wrote Anita L. Pollitzer, of the National Women’s Party. Alice Paul, the party’s charismatic leader, thanked Fess for his “steadfast support.” Two other letters mention his help in the West Virginia and Tennessee ratification efforts. And a letter to a Mrs. C. C. Stephenson, Chairman of the Women’s Republican Club of Yellow Springs, sings Fess’ praises for “rais[ing] his voice on behalf of women.” “I should consider it a privilege to be associated with him myself, so I know that you do,” the letter, from suffragist Harriet Taylor Upton, concludes. A quilt by local quilter Chris Zurbuchen, on display at the Yellow Springs Arts Council Gallery in late summer 2019, com - memorates these letters and Fess’ role. In that same show, Zurbuchen also displayed a quilt she created to honor Olympia Brown. Ohio was the fifth state to ratify the 19th amendment. Tennessee, the last of the nec- essary 36 states, ratified in August, 1920, and the 19th amendment was officially adopted on Aug. 26, 1920. The amendment failed to fully enfran- chise African-American and other women of color. Still, it was a watershed. Whether through indifference or disap - proval, the editor of the Yellow Springs News, however, failed to opine on the achievement at the time. “There was literally ‘no comment’ in the Yellow Springs News,” Antioch archivist Sanders said. The male-edited Antioch student pub - lications were also silent on the issue, he added. From her home in Racine, Wisc., Brown’s reaction was — thankfully — a good deal more inspiring. Addressing a Racine church congregation in the fall of 1920, she reflected on the life- changing nature of votes for women. “[T]he grandest thing has been the lifting up of the gates and the opening of the doors to the women of America, giving liberty to 27 million women, thus opening to them a new and larger life and a higher ideal,” she said.  ♦ Articles excerpted here were originally published in 2009, 2012 and 2015, and written by Judith Wolert-Maldonado and Megan Bachman. By YS NEWS STAFF ‘W omen share rituals,” wrote Anne Hinkley in a Yellow Springs News column. One longstanding local ritual was Women’s Voices Out Loud, an annual performance event and art exhibit that ran from 1980–2015. The event had its roots in a late-1970s Yellow Springs News column called “Wom- en’s Voices,” featuring such local women as Hinkley, Jean Hudson, Joan Margaret, Doro- thy Smith and Susan Carpenter. That group, which also started the Yellow Springs chap- ter of the Feminist Writer’s Guild, decided to “go out loud,” in the words of Carpenter, with an annual event. At the first WVOL, in the meeting room at the Yellow Springs Community Library in December 1980, about a dozen women per - formed songs and poems. Others erected original artwork, including a quilt, paintings and a dollhouse. A table of pies served as both one woman’s artistic contribution and the evening’s refreshments. Books by Margaret Atwood, Adrienne Rich and other female authors were put on display. But getting women to speak up was not easy, according to Carpenter. “We begged women to participate,” Car - penter told the News in 2009. “Women were very reluctant to read their own words. Some settled for Sylvia Plath or Marge Piercy.” The first piece Carpenter read was “The Talking Housework Blues.” Carpenter tapped along in time to her recitation with a spoon on her leg. Her friend, Carolion, accompa- nied her on guitar. “In some places, when you’re perform- ing, it’s kind of a competition,” Carolion told FOR 36 YEARS— Women’s voices ring the News in 2009. But Women’s Voices Out Loud, she said, “is more like a braiding together of our energies and our goodwill.” Laurie Dreamspinner, a facilitator of many WVOL events through the years, believes that the uncertainty to speak, for some women, has not gone away. “It’s still difficult for women and girls to speak out without apologizing, and to expect to be heard.” Women’s Voices Out Loud was also held at the local Unitarian Universalist Fellow- ship and Rockford Chapel before outgrow- ing the small spaces and settling in at the Bryan Center. By the late ’80s and early ’90s, crowds regularly packed the gym there, where it was standing room only, according to Lynn Sontag, a former organizer. “To me, it’s a crazy quilt from Yellow Springs, and what seams it together is the audience,” Sontag said. Women’s Voices Out Loud is “like a braiding together of our energies and our goodwill.” —  CAROLION The show's complementary art exhibit shares the same values, Dreamspinner said. “It’s not juried and anybody that is women-identified can participate — that’s big. You don’t have to worry about whose stuff is good enough.” But in 2012, the event’s annual art exhibition sparked controversy when village employees took offense to nude artwork in display in the halls of the Bryan Center. The artwork deemed offensive included a female nude line drawing by Sherraid Scott, an abstract representation of male and female sex organs by Nancy Mellon and a mannequin called “Hairy Mary” by Mellon and Corrine Bayraktaroglu, aka the Jafa Girls, with decorative fabric covering its private areas, according to Bayraktaroglu. After the criticism was publicized, local PHOTOS BY MEGAN BACHMAN Attendees at the 2012 “Women’s Voices Out Loud" viewed its controversial art exhibit in the John Bryan Community Gallery, the last year the exhibit was held there. In the foreground is local artist Deb Housh’s painting, “More Nudes Please.” Women’s vote Continued from page 43