W.C.T.U. Franchise Leaflet. Published for the National Department of Franchise...Senator Carey on Equal Rights [caption title]

Boston: April, 1891. About very good.. 4pp., on a single folded slim folio sheet, printed in two columns. Minor toning, light fraying to edges, two corners chipped, tape reinforcements along fold lines and spine, old ink number stamp at top of first page. A very rare leaflet printing the text of a speech delivered by Wyoming Senator Joseph M. Carey to the National-American Woman Suffrage Convention in Washington, D.C. on February 27, 1891. Senator Carey details the history of suffrage as it relates to the organization of the state of Wyoming, where "the principle of equality of citizenship without regard to sex had been fully recognized and incorporated as part of the Constitution of the new State." He then details a concerted effort by the Wyoming Legislature to repeal the law which provided for women's suffrage in the state, which ultimately failed after being vetoed and coming up one vote short in the Legislature's attempt to override. He also expounds upon the positive impact that the women of Wyoming have had in simply exercising their natural right to vote. Carey then weaves his experiences with women's suffrage in Wyoming into the larger struggle for the vote, discusses his reasoning for supporting women's suffrage, and also tackles some of the age-old challenges which impel some to argue against women's suffrage. Carey sums his argument up quite effectively, retaining a twinge of paternalism that often colored men's arguments for women's suffrage: "In order that women shall be more influential citizens of the State, better qualified to raise noble men and women to fight the battles of life, and to carry out the true purpose of this republic, woman should possess the full rights of citizenship." The present work was published through the auspices of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, their National Superintendent Therese A. Jenkins of Cheyenne, Wyoming, and the organization's famed leader, Associate Superintendent Alice Stone Blackwell in Boston. Besides the present leaflet, the WCTU published a series of suffrage tracts, a weekly column by Blackwell, and The Woman's Journal, all of which are advertised following Carey's speech here. OCLC records just a single copy of this leaflet, at Harvard.