Just as women’s suffrage in Arkansas was gaining momentum, the movement suffered two debilitating blows.
In 1893, after five years of publication the Woman’s Chronicle was forced to close due to the illness of its founder, Kate Cunningham. In February 1898 Clara McDiarmid, the founder of the Arkansas Equal Suffrage Association, full of optimism, reported to the annual convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association that “There is much suffrage sentiment in our State…I believe there is a good time coming.”
The following year, on July 22, 1899, Clara McDiarmid died. The state would be without suffrage leadership for the next decade.