Women's suffrage in Florida had two distinct phases. The first women's suffrage effort in Florida was led by Ella C. Chamberlain in the early 1890s. Chamberlain began writing a women's suffrage news column, started a mixed-gender women's suffrage group and organized conventions in Florida. After Chamberlain left Florida in 1897, most women's suffrage activities ceased until around 1912. That year, the Equal Franchise League of Florida was organized in Jacksonville, Florida. Other groups soon followed, forming around the state. Whenever the Florida Legislature was in session, suffragists advocated for equal franchise amendments to the Florida Constitution. In October 1913, property-owning women in Orlando, Florida attempted unsuccessfully to vote. However, their actions raised awareness about women's suffrage in the state. In 1915, the city of Fellsmere allowed municipal women's suffrage and Zena Dreier became the first legal women voter in the South on June 19. By 1919, several cities in Florida allowed women to vote in municipal elections. Florida did not take action on the Nineteenth Amendment, and only ratified it years later on May 13, 1969.
Early efforts
After attending the Woman's Inter-State Conference held in Fall of 1892 in Des Moines, Ella C. Chamberlain returned to Florida and created a suffrage department at the Weekly Tribune in Tampa. Her suffrage column would run until 1897. Chamberlain's speech on women's suffrage in January 1893 led to the creation of a mixed-gender women's suffrage group. She became president of the group, called the Florida Woman Suffrage Association (FWSA) and which affiliated with the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA). She went to the national suffrage convention as a delegate of FWSA in 1893, becoming the first person to represent Florida at one of these conventions. Chamberlain promoted women's suffrage at the Carpenter's Union in 1894. FWSA distributed literature and raised money. In 1895, a state suffrage convention was held in Tampa. Chamberlain also attended the women's suffrage convention held in Atlanta, Georgia in 1895. Despite the efforts of FWSA, they were unable to create any new chapters around the state. Suffrage work seems to have continued until 1897 when Chamberlain left Florida and no one stepped up to take her place.
Resurgence
After Chamberlain left, women's suffrage mainly remained dormant in Florida until around 1912. One exception was a petition to the United States Congress for a federal women's suffrage amendment that was circulated by John Schnarr of Orlando in 1907.
The next women's suffrage group was founded on June 15, 1912 in Jacksonville. Katherine Livingstone Eagan, Roselle Cooley, and thirty other women met at the home of Frances Anderson on that day to create the Equal Franchise League of Florida. The group had trouble renting space for lectures, but it did secure headquarters in the offices of the Heard National Bank. The Woman's Club would not rent out space for a suffrage meeting and the Board of Trade also rejected them so the women packed suffragists into their headquarters for lectures. There was a large amount of disapproval for women's suffrage in Florida, so the Jacksonville group used the term "equal franchise" over "women's suffrage."
In February 1913 another women's suffrage group, called the Political Equality Club was formed in Lake Helen. Soon after, an Orlando Equal Franchise League was created with Mary A. Safford as president. Safford, a Unitarian minister, came to Florida in 1911 to retire. Safford and the others started to look into forming a state-wide suffrage organization. Edith Owen Stoner of Jacksonville organized the Florida delegates in the Woman Suffrage Procession.