A newspaper report and excerpts from Addams' February 17 speech at the National Suffrage Convention, after the defeat of municipal suffrage for women in Chicago.
Addams discusses the benefits of suffrage and how the vote will benefit immigrant women living in tenement houses. This lecture was made before the Ethical Culture Society at New Century Hall in Philadelphia on March 14, 1908 and published later.
Addams discusses poor women in Chicago and their need for suffrage at a meeting of the College Equal Suffrage Society at Boston University on March 21. The excerpt was published later.
Addams argues for women to have the vote in order that they may continue to perform their duties to family and to home in the modern world, where responsibilities, like feeding their children and keeping them safe, are no long directly within their control.