Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1890-1920
Biography of Ida Porter Boyer, 1859-
By Arielle Solomon, undergraduate student, Tulane University
Ida Porter was born December 10, 1859 to John R. and Elizabeth Porter (nee Kleckner) in Middleport, Pennsylvania. In 1885, she had a son, Richard Porter Boyer, with Alva H. Boyer. Porter and Boyer got married in 18984. Porter was a Unitarian and was educated primarily by private tutors.
Ida Porter Boyer was an active suffragist who attained national prominence. She represented Pennsylvania at the Thirty-Sixth Annual Convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association held at Washington, D.C., February 11-17, 1904. At the convention, Boyer served as the Press Chair, Chair of Special Committees, Editor of Progress, and she delivered the Report of Committees on Libraries. These were important positions, and one of her major responsibilities and contributions was her preparation of a bibliography of woman suffrage, compiling and organizing the work of suffragists. She also presented the report of Committee on Legislation for Civil Rights. Boyer's helped to organize the suffrage movement nationally. She was an organizer for the National American Woman Suffrage Association. She also served as a field secretary of the Pennsylvania Woman Suffrage Association and as manager of the Woman Suffrage Campaign in Oklahoma. Boyer went to Michigan in 1918 as Press Chair of the Michigan Equal Suffrage Association and quickly took on the responsibilities of Executive Secretary. She also did extensive work on behalf of suffrage in Boston. She worked as the Secretary of Committee on Education for Citizenship of the Boston Suffrage League, a duty which included being the special lecturer. A woman who did not support suffrage who attended one of her citizenship classes said to her, "I want you to know that I am an anti," to which Boyer replied, "There is no such thing any longer. Every woman now is either a patriot or a slacker."
Ida Porter Boyer also spent a decent amount of her time working for suffragists in Louisiana. She was a delegate for Louisiana at the National American Woman Suffrage Association's Forty-Sixth Annual Convention. She also worked for the Woman Suffrage Headquarters to help contribute to the Report to the Louisiana State Commission to Study the Conditions of Working Women and Children. She also attended a Woman Suffrage Conference in New Orleans that immediately preceded the National Conference that took place November 13 to 17, 1914.
Sources:
Proceedings of the Thirty-Sixth Annual Convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, held at Washington, D.C., February 11th to 17th inclusive, 1904 (pp. 5, 32, 39, 143)
http://search.ancestrylibrary.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=1900usfedcen&indiv=try&h=58477516 accessed 12 February 2017
Colman's Rural World, October 22, 1914 http://search.proquest.com/docview/90006606?accountid=14437&rfr_id=info%3Axri%2Fsid%3Aprimo
Alice Stone Blackwell , ed., The Woman Citizen Volume 3, pp. 4, 547; Alice Stone Blackwell , ed., The Woman Citizen, Volume 4, pp. 347, 740, 1044.
John W. Leonard, Woman's Who's Who of America, 1914-1915, p. 120. [LINK]
Proceedings of the Forty-Sixth Annual Convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, held at Nashville, Tennessee, November 12 to 17, 1914
Report to the Louisiana State Commission to Study the Conditions of Working Women and Children, Appointed by Governor Hall, July 3, 1914. Prepared by S. M. Hartzmann, Director of the Investigation, p. 2.