Women's suffrage in Arkansas had early champions among men in the state. Miles Ledford Langley of Arkadelphia, Arkansas proposed a women's suffrage clause during the 1868 Arkansas Constitutional Convention. Educator, James Mitchell wanted to see a world where his daughters had equal rights. The first woman's suffrage group in Arkansas was organized by Lizzie Dorman Fyler in 1881. A second women's suffrage organization was formed by Clara McDiarmid in 1888. McDiarmid was very influential on women's suffrage work in the last few decades of the nineteenth century. When she died in 1899, suffrage work slowed down, but did not all-together end. Both Bernie Babcock and Jean Vernor Jennings continued to work behind the scenes. In the 1910s, women's suffrage work began to increase again. socialist women, like Freda Hogan were very involved in women's suffrage causes. Other social activists, like Minnie Rutherford Fuller became involved in the Political Equality League (PEL) founded in 1911 by Jennings. Another statewide suffrage group, also known as the Arkansas Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) was organized in 1914. AWSA decided to work towards helping women vote in the important primary elections in the state. The first woman to address the Arkansas General Assembly was suffragist Florence Brown Cotnam who spoke in favor of a women's suffrage amendment on February 5, 1915. While that amendment was not completely successful, Cotnam was able to persuade the Arkansas governor to hold a special legislative session in 1917. That year Arkansas women won the right to vote in primary elections. In May 1918, between 40,000 and 50,000 white women voted in the primaries. African American voters were restricted from voting in primaries in the state. Further efforts to amend the state constitution took place in 1918, but were also unsuccessful. When the Nineteenth Amendment passed the United States Congress, Arkansas held another special legislative session in July 1919. The amendment was ratified on July 28 and Arkansas became the twelfth state to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment.
Early efforts
During the 1868 Arkansas Constitutional Convention, delegate Miles Ledford Langley from Arkadelphia, proposed an equal suffrage addition to the state constitution. Langley's language would provide for any literate citizen over the age of 21 to vote. On February 12, 1868, he addressed the Arkansas House of Representatives on why women's suffrage was necessary. His speech in favor of women's rights was ridiculed by many of the delegates. When women's suffrage was rejected and not included in the state constitution, Langley wrote to Susan B. Anthony and apologized that Arkansas had not given women their "God-given and well-earned rights of civil and political equality." Other men in Arkansas, like James Mitchell, felt that it was necessary for women to have equal rights, including suffrage, to have economic justice. Mitchell also hoped that his daughters would live in a more equal world. Suffragist Phoebe Couzins visited Little Rock in 1870, where she spoke on women's suffrage.
Lizzie Dorman Fyler organized the Arkansas Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) in Eureka Springs, Arkansas by September 1881. Fyler was a lawyer and worked in the temperance movement. In 1884, Mary W. Loughborough started a woman's magazine called the Arkansas Ladies' Journal. The journal was not explicitly pro-suffrage, but hinted that women should be involved in politics. Also in 1884, Fyler attended the annual convention of the National Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), where she was the first delegate from Arkansas. Before Fyler died, she dissolved AWSA in October 1885. Another suffrage group that went by different names was founded by Clara McDiarmid, a Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) officer, in 1888 in Little Rock. McDiarmid, a former resident of Kansas, was upset that she lost some of her rights in the move to Arkansas. A month after the formation of the new Little Rock suffrage group, the women started a journal called the Woman's Chronicle. The journal, edited by and for women, was a major source of information for Southern suffragists and temperance activists. Editor, Catherine Cunningham, shared that she received "much adverse criticism" due to her work on the journal. In March 1893, the last edition was published because of the editor, Cunningham, experienced an illness. In 1895, Lide Meriwether, a suffragists from Tennessee, spoke in many Arkansas cities, sometimes bringing the first women's suffrage lecture the citizens had ever seen.