The year 1885 saw a number of serious blows to the suffrage movement in Arkansas. That year, the Arkansas Woman Suffrage Association established by Lizzie Dorman Fyler in 1881 had dissolved. Reporting in the November 21st issue of the national Woman’s Journal, Fyler laments the absence of an organized suffrage society and speculates that the state is not yet ready for it.
A few days later, Fyler suddenly died. She was thirty-five years old. The Woman’s Journal reprinted her entire obituary from the Eureka Spring Times adding that Fyler’s suggestion for a literacy requirement for southern women’s suffrage had gained national attention.
To learn more about Arkansas women’s path to suffrage, visit ARvotesforwomen.com