Letter from Hamilton Willcox to U.S. Senator Joseph M. Carey, August 10, 1893

Male suffragists also played a part in the women’s suffrage movement. According to Wyoming historian T.A. Larson, veteran Indiana suffragist George W. Julian began a chain reaction when he introduced a bill in the U.S. Congress in December 1868 to give women the right to vote in all territories. New York suffragist Hamilton Willcox drew much public attention when he testified in a committee hearing that Julian’s bill would attract women to the territories. Although Julian’s bill died in committee, Edward M. Lee of Connecticut had taken note of the attract-women argument. Lee soon won appointment as secretary of the new Territory of Wyoming. Lee was a supporter of the passage of women’s suffrage in Wyoming in 1869. In this letter, Willcox and his New York Women Suffrage Party are gathering statistics on women prisoners. Transcription included.