Site of 1913 Suffrage Convention Reception Gets New Page on Freethought Trail

The Freethought Trail's coverage of the Forty-Fifth Annual Convention of the New York State Woman Suffrage Association (NYSWSA), held in Binghamton, New York, in October 1913, is now complete. A new Site page has been created for the Clubhouse of the Monday Afternoon Club, a distinguished civic organization for women. On the afternoon of Wednesday, October 15, 1913, the Club hosted a reception for convention delegates at this lavish mansion facility.

The mansion was completed in 1871 as the residence of banker and local business leader Sherman David Phelps. (The architect, Isaac Gale Perry, also designed the convention's other two venues, Centenary Church and the Bennett Hotel.) The mansion was purchased by the Monday Afternoon Club in 1905 and a large ballroom was added. The mansion served the club until its dissolution in 2006; it is now the Phelps Mansion, a historic-house museum.

The addition of this page completes the Freethought Trail's coverage of the 1913 convention. Special thanks go to Broome County Historian Roger Luther, who helped to locate an elusive copy of NYSWSA's Annual Report published after the Binghamton convention.