Forty-Sixth NY State Suffrage Convention

The forty-sixth annual convention of the New York State Woman Suffrage Association was held in Rochester on Monday to Friday, October 12–16, 1914. (Nineteenth-century practice was to use the singular, woman's; later practice was to use the plural, women's.) Several plenary sessions were held in the Powers Hotel ballroom. Additionally, the Powers served as the convention's headquarters. Presiding over the convention was nationally prominent suffragist and then president of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, Carrie Chapman Catt. Syracuse suffrage leader Harriet May Mills is also known to have been among the speakers. Some two hundred delegates attended the convention, which made use of multiple Rochester venues including Convention Hall downtown and the just-completed Anthony Memorial Hall on the University of Rochester campus.

On Monday, October 12, there was a pre-convention reception in the Powers Hotel lobby. Tuesday, October 13, began with a ninety-minute motor car procession through the city. The first plenary session began at 3:00 p.m. in the Powers Hotel ballroom. Also, Convention Hall was the site of an evening mass meeting, where Catt presided.

Wednesday, October 14, was given over to committee reports and business meetings, and to what we would now consider a workshop session conducted by Catt, titled "How to Win." All these Wednesday activities took place at the Powers. On the evening of Wednesday, October 14, a reception for convention delegates was held at Anthony Memorial Hall to honor the memory of the revered suffrage pioneer Susan B. Anthony, who had died in 1906 and so would not see the dream of suffrage fulfilled fourteen years later, on August 26, 1920.

Thursday, October 15, saw the election of officers, after which an evening "Pageant Parade" was the Convention's capstone event, where participants marched in a parade from the Powers for a mass meeting at Convention Hall. The program, which began at 8:15 p.m., featured a mixture of musical performance and work sessions. The evening's feature event was a speech by veteran organizer Mills titled "Field Work."

Friday, October 16, was devoted to unfinished business and other business matters, all at the Powers.