Male delegate spoke at Women's Suffrage Convention

A male Virginian delegate spoke at a Women's Suffrage Convention on January 9, 1878. According to the Daily Dispatch, he made the well applauded comment that “those engaged in the women's movement were the advanced guard of civilization.' Also according the newspaper he spoke about a broad range of subjects that was long and rather boring to the audience. However, this does not diminish the significance of the convention itself.
The women's movement was spreading across the South. Since the end of the Civil War more and more opportunities and responsibilities were coming to women. This increase in power corresponded with a rise in women wanting to have voting privileges. The very face that there was a convention in which, according the paper “ladies who pay the rent for the hall' and have male delegates speak at it tells volumes about the extent to which the beginnings of the women's movement had. Also, women faced opposition from the South because of idealized tradition and resistance to change.