West Virginia Equal Suffrage Association

The West Virginia Equal Suffrage Association (WVESA) was an organization formed on November 29, 1895, at a conference in Grafton, West Virginia.^[1] This conference and the subsequent annual conventions were an integral part of the National American Woman Suffrage Association's Southern Committee's work to reach into previously under-represented areas for supporting the women's suffrage movement. The WVESA relied not only on the national association but also worked together with activists from the state's chapter of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, state chapter of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, and the clubs affiliated with the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs to win the right to vote. Though they lost in a landslide the 1916 referendum to amend the state's constitution for women's suffrage, the group provided the strong push for ratifying the federal amendment in spring 1920 that led to West Virginia becoming the thirty-fourth of the thirty-six states needed.^[2] That fall, West Virginia women voted for the first time ever, and the WVESA transformed itself into the League of Women Voters of West Virginia.