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If that happened, it was feared,
ratification wouldn’t occur in time for the 1920 elections, and it might
take several more years — or even a decade — for the suffragists to win
their long struggle to add the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. Both
the U.S. House and Senate had ratified the amendment, which then needed
36 state legislatures to sign on. By the time Delaware’s pro-suffrage
Republican governor, John Townsend, convened a special session of the
majority-Republican General Assembly to consider the amendment, 35 other
states had ratified it.
“All political eyes were on Delaware,” Boylan writes in the opening
of her book that sets the scene for the political battle in Dover.
So many activists and lobbyists on both sides of the suffrage issue,
reporters from various newspapers and wire services, politicians and
public officials from across the country arrived in the state capital
that it became impossible to find a hotel room in the city. For a few
months, from March until early June 1920, there were rallies and
targeted outreach efforts from constituents to their legislators —
nationally, the suffragists had already succeeded in 35 state
ratification campaigns, Boylan noted, so they were experienced and
highly organized. In Legislative Hall in Dover, representatives,
senators and visitors sported red roses (distributed by anti-suffrage
groups) or yellow daffodils or jonquils (in favor of suffrage) on their
lapels.