27th Annual Convention of the New York State Woman Suffrage Association, November 8-12, 1895

The 27th Annual Convention of the New York State Woman Suffrage Association (NYSWSA) was held in Newburgh, NY on November 8-12, 1895. Convention events were held at the Academy of Music Hall on Broadway and convention attendees stayed at the Palantine Hotel, which was located up Grand Street near the Newburgh Free Library.

The New York State Woman Suffrage Association (NYSWSA) was organized in 1869 after the Fifteenth Amendment only granted the vote to men. Matilda Joslyn Gage organized the first state convention at Saratoga Springs, July 13-14, 1869 and the association held a convention annually after that. The annual convention was a strategy used by NYSWSA to bring together all the smaller societies throughout the state to work together to advance women’s suffrage in New York.

The 27th Annual Convention was held November 8-12, 1895 in Newburgh, NY. Like many of the previous conventions, there were committee meetings and reports, addresses and speakers, and entertainment. There was a special focus on efforts to pass New York Assembly Bill No. 637 that would change the language of the state’s voter laws and there was also a heated debate between Lillie Devereaux Blake and anti-suffrage Reverend Dr. Morgan Dix. However, the 1895 convention was an important turning point in the New York, and larger national, suffrage movement. The first generation of leaders was growing older, Susan B. Anthony was 75 and Elizabeth Cady Stanton 80, and the 1895 convention marked a transition to a younger generation of suffragist leaders. Some of the new generation, like Carrie Chapman Catt and Reverend Anna Howard Shaw, had been mentored closely by Anthony and Stanton, but overall the new generation had new ideas on how to move the suffrage movement forward. In a way, the older generation was more radical, calling for the vote and women’s equality with men. The younger generation, influenced by white middle-class Progressivism, sought the vote as a way to address the social ills of wider American society. The symbolism of the 1895 convention as a changing of the guard was cemented by the conventions final event, a celebration hosted by the National Council of Women at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City for Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s 80^th birthday.

Events for the 27^th Annual Convention were held at the Academy of Music on Broadway. The convention organizers displayed an altered American Flag across the Academy stage—the flag only had four stars. Two fully embroidered stars represented Colorado and Wyoming where women had gained the full vote and two outlined stars represented Utah and Idaho where women had partial suffrage. The Academy hall opened in September 1888 and was later converted to a cinema and renamed the Academy Theatre. The building was destroyed in a fire in 1956 and was demolished. Convention lodging was at the Palantine Hotel on Grand Street (located where the front lawn of the Newburgh Free Library is). The Palantine Hotel opened in July 1893 as an elegant 116-room hotel. At the turn of the century, Newburgh was a bustling city with a flourishing theater district, close enough to New York City to attract visitors for a day or overnight trip. Starting with the Great Depression Newburgh experienced economic decline, leading to many of the magnificent nineteenth-century structures to fall into disrepair. In the 1960s and 1970s an urban renewal plan led to the demolition of almost 2000 buildings, including the Palantine Hotel. 

“Academy Theatre.” Cinema Treasures. Accessed December 13, 2021. http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/14109.

Cher. “The Palantine Hotel: Gone but not Forgotten.” Newburgh Restoration. June 7, 2010. Accessed December 13, 2021. https://newburghrestoration.com/blog/2010/06/07/the-palatine-hotel-gone-but-not-forgotten-2/

McTamaney, Mary. “Suffragettes in Newburgh.” Historical Society of Newburgh Bay & The Highlands. Accessed December 14, 2021. https://www.newburghhistoricalsociety.com/events/blog-post-title-two-mpatk.

“New York State Woman Suffrage Association (NYSWSA).” Freethought Trail. Accessed October 18, 2021. https://freethought-trail.org/profiles/profile:new-york-state-woman-suffrage-association-nyswsa/.

Risk, Shannon M. “The Republic May Wear a Crown of True Greatness: The 1895 New York State Woman Suffrage Association Convention.” The Hudson River Valley Review 23, 2 (Spring 2007): 17-32. Accessed December 13, 2021. https://www.hudsonrivervalley.org/documents/401021/1102522/HRVR+23.2+full/02702d20-a051-401b-9e5b-7bfc89aa4677