About: Equal Franchise Society

The Equal Franchise Society (EFS) was a state-by-state organization that advocated women's suffrage in the United States. Created and joined by women of wealth, it was a conduit through which the energies of upper-class women could be channeled into political activism conducted within a socially comfortable milieu. The New York branch of the Society, for example, often held suffrage rallies at which members spoke in the street outside the Colony Club, to which many of them belonged. After the public rally, Club members would eat luncheon inside their Club. The EFS also invited anti-suffragists to meet with them for the purposes of debate.