Louise Hall (suffragist)

Annie Louise Hall was born on January 15, 1881, in the Pensacola, Florida Naval Base.^[1] In 1884, her family moved to the Naval Base in Newport, Rhode Island and by 1900, the family was living in Lowell, Massachusetts.^[1] Hall graduated from Vassar in 1903.^[2] She worked as a teacher in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New York.^[1] Hall worked for a year in a settlement house in New York City in the "Bohemian quarter" in 1908.^[3][1] While she worked at the settlement house, she began to become interested in women's suffrage.^[4] In 1910, she moved back to Lowell and worked as a secretary for a while.^[1]

Hall's first suffrage work was in Massachusetts.^[1] Hall later worked on the Rhode Island women's suffrage campaign in Providence.^[5] In the summer of 1912, she was involved in campaigning on Ohio's women suffrage referendum.^[3][6][7] In Ohio, she was able to get Buffalo Bill to display a "Votes for Women" flag during one of his events.^[8] She spoke throughout Ohio in front of large audiences.^[9]

Around 1913, she began to work on the Pennsylvania suffrage campaign.^[10] Hall worked as the field secretary for the Pennsylvania Woman's Suffrage Association (PWSA).^[11] When the Justice Bell toured Pennsylvania to promote women's suffrage in 1915, Hall served as the director of the tour and gave speeches throughout the state.^[10] Hall's life partner, Ethel Bret Harte, daughter of Bret Harte, toured with her during this time.^[1]

In 1917, Hall did work as field secretary for the New York Woman Suffrage Association (NYWSA).^[1] Hall worked briefly in Connecticut after a mostly successful New York campaign.^[1] Hall's last suffrage work was in New Hampshire, where she worked as an organizer 1918.^[1][12]

Hall went on to work as a saleswoman for Mass Mutual Life Insurance and moved back to Lowell.^[1] She and her partner, Harte, decided to move to Ojai, California in 1934.^[1] The two of them bought a car and drove across the United States to Ojai where they built a house.^[1] Afterwards, they divided their time between California and New England.^[1] Harte died in Ojai in 1964 and Hall died two years later in Ojai on September 20, 1966.^[1]

• Article by Louise Hall (1915)