The Equal Suffrage League of Virginia (ESL) was founded in 1909
in Richmond. when eighteen women met at the home of Anne Clay
Crenshaw. Lila Meade Valentine, a Richmond native, became the
first president of the ESL. Valentine believed that an
electorate that included women would be more supportive of
democratic issues such as equal educational opportunities and
health care reform. Along with Valentine, the league's others
members included several prestigious women, among them Ellen
Glasgow, Mary Johnston, Adéle Clark, Nora Houston, and Dr.
Katherine Waller Barrett. During the first year about 120 women
joined. The league sought to win women the right to vote as a
democratic right of tax-paying citizens, which women were.
Although independence had been won in 1776, women were still not
equal citizens nearly a century and a half later. By denying
women the right to vote, they argued, America was stuck in pre-
Revolution days of taxation without representation. The League
joined forces with the National American