On June 11, 1912, a group of women met at the YMCA in Dayton to discuss how to secure passage of a women's suffrage amendment to the Ohio Constitution, which was on the ballot that year. Ohio women could vote only in school board elections, dating to 1894.

So a public relations blitz was launched in the state. Women distributed pamphlets, threw parties, staged parades and even traded stacks of pancakes for male signatures on a petition at a fair booth.

But the amendment failed at the polls in September, when only 24 of 88 Ohio counties approved it.

The national suffrage movement, however, was gaining momentum. In May 1919, the 19th Amendment passed the House of Representatives by a two-thirds majority. And on June 4, 1919, the U.S. Senate also passed the amendment.

Ohio ratified the amendment June 16, 1919. And the right of women to vote became federal law in 1920.

Rebecca Goodman

E-mail rgoodman@enquirer.com or call (513) 768-8361.