HAUSER, ELIZABETH (b. 16 Mar. 1873), leader and suffragette, was born in Girard, Ohio to David and Mary (Bixler) Hauser. She had over a decade of writing experience for the Warren Tribune Chronicle and other papers which won her a job as secretary to TOM L. JOHNSON† and editor of his autobiography, My Story. Hauser came to Cleveland in 1910 to organize Cuyahoga County women to win suffrage as director of the Cuyahoga County Women's Suffrage Assoc. To increase the acceptability of supporting suffrage, Hauser wooed socially prominent women to attend lectures and luncheons, and allow their names to be used in conjunction with suffrage activities. The feminists collected 15,000 county signatures to present at the 1912 Ohio Constitutional Convention, which voted 76-34 in favor of submitting Amendment 23 for women's suffrage to a special election on 3 Sept. 1912. The Cuyahoga County Women's Assoc., which became the Cuyahoga County Women's Suffrage party, with the organizational framework of wards and precincts, built strong grassroots support that brought out the vote in the 1912 election. Though Amendment 23 lost, the machinery was in place for further campaigns. Hauser battled antisuffragists, financial difficulties, and uninformed attitudes with lectures, debates, bake sales, rallies, whistlestops, suffrage suppers, and pageants. When suffrage passed, Hauser and other former suffrage leaders formed the LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS (LWV) OF CLEVELAND to continue politically educating women, in which Hauser became a national officer.

Never married and having no children, Hauser died in Girard, Ohio and was buried in the Girard-Liberty Union Cemetery.

Abbott, Virgina Clark. The History of Woman Suffrage and the League of Women Voters in Cuyahoga County, 1911-1945 (1949).

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