From left: Ann Arbor Area League of Women Voters members Zoe Behnke and Jeanine DeLay; Washtenaw County Historical Society administrator Beverly Willis; and historical society board member and League member Pauline Walters stand with a cutout of Florence Noyes, who dressed as Lady Liberty for a suffrage parade in 1913.

The year is 1912 and in Michigan, the women's suffrage movement has been at work for more than half a century — but it is the last few years that have been most promising.

By 1900, there wasn't a single pro-suffrage organization in Washtenaw County. By 1912, there are half a dozen —countywide groups, Ann Arbor groups, Ypsilanti groups, groups at each of the local universities.

The movement has the Zietgeist, but more important, it has a well-placed supporter in the highest of offices, Michigan Gov. Chase Osborn.

The fight is on.

It’s a campaign chronicled in the exhibit “Liberty Awakes in Washtenaw County: When Women Won the Vote,” presented by the Ann Arbor Area League of Women Voters. League members Zoe Behnke and Jeanine DeLay researched and created the exhibit, which is open for viewing at the Museum on Main Street, the headquarters of the Washtenaw County Historical Society.

“Liberty Awakes” continues through Sunday, Feb. 27.

Through photographs, recollections, and the paper ephemera of the age — fliers, handbills and more — “Liberty Awakes” traces the history of the suffragist movement and its local adherents.

The events of 1912 feature prominently.

That year, Gov. Osborn challenged the Legislature to put women's suffrage up to a vote. Lawmakers agreed, but the measure failed statewide by only 760 votes. In Washtenaw County, the measure fell short by a mere 86 votes.

Suffragists tried again in 1913, but drew more anti-suffrage votes than the year before.

It wouldn't be until 1918 that voters came around, two years before women won suffrage on the national level with the passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.

Another exhibit panel poses the question “Suffragists or Suffragettes?” The former, it becomes clear, is what we call those who supported women's right to vote.

"Liberty Awakes," an exhibit of the women's suffrage movement and its ties to Washtenaw County, is on display at the Museum on Main Street in Ann Arbor. These replica banners display popular pro-suffrage messages from the early 20th century.

Angela J. Cesere | AnnArbor.com

The latter was a slur that anti-suffragists used to insinuate a certain immorality in women seeking political voices and roles outside the home, that the push for suffrage was "a threat to home and hearth."

Women adjusted their tactics accordingly. To combat the "shrieking suffragette" stereotype, some women gave "silent speeches" on the topic.

A woman would don her nicest dress and a fine feathered cap and take a spot on a public square. Rather than give a speech and be dragged into an argument, she would bring along paper flip boards with talking points and turn the pages quietly as a crowd looked on.

The suffragists featured in “Liberty Awakes” would be considered accomplished by any standard, but especially for their era.

Maria Peel joined the Ann Arbor Equal Suffrage Association in 1910 at the age of 49, one of three widows to join. She went on to become Ann Arbor's first female police officer.

Estelle Downing founded a suffrage group at Michigan State Normal College in her late 30s and is said to have inspired a generation of suffragists.

Once women could vote, Downing not only voted, she ran for office and won, becoming the first woman to sit on the Ypsilanti City Council.

Downing and fellow Normal College suffragist Jessie Phelps of Ypsilanti both have dorms at Eastern Michigan University named in their honor. Ann Arbor suffragist Mary Hinsdale was a scholar who wrote "The History of the President's Cabinet" in 1911 and spoke on the moral need for suffrage. She went on to run for several public offices.

These women made their mark before the era of affirmative action or Title IX, before gender equity was a social priority or a legal imperative.

But one of history's truths is that there could be no women's suffrage without men's support.

Not just politicians like Osborn but educators like P.R. Cleary, the founder of Cleary College; Charles McKenny, president of the Michigan State Normal College, as Eastern Michigan University was then known; and Victor C. Vaughan, dean of the University of Michigan Medical School and president of Michigan's board of public health.

Vaughan's activism led him to found or co-found at least two pro-suffrage groups in Washtenaw County: the U-M Equal Suffrage Club, which he founded with his wife, and the Washtenaw Equal Suffrage Association.

While University of Michigan President Harry Burns Hutchins refused to allow suffragist Jane Addams to speak at University Hall in October 1912, citing a university policy against political agitation, Cleary and McKenny were bringing in suffragists from as far as New Zealand and Colorado to tell audiences about how life had managed to go on just fine with women voting — how life could go on just fine if women were allowed to vote in Michigan, and even nationwide.

The 1920 presidential election was the first following the passage of the 19th Amendment, the first opportunity that women had to use their powers. So what did they do with it?

While there's a debate as to whether women took advantage of their newfound right, one thing women did do was "disrupt commonly held views of what the good citizen looked like," explains one exhibit flier.

That sentence captions a two-panel cartoon reflecting how women changed the voting experience: The first panel features a big-bellied, top hat-wearing, cigar-smoking man called Machine Politics walking with his associates Graft, Vice and Corruption, into a smoke-filled room labeled "Polling Place." The second features a husband and wife, Mr. and Mrs. Good Citizen, walking into a polling place staffed by two friendly women.

There are no concrete plans for the suffrage exhibit's next landing spot once its time on Main Street ends. Behnke said that the public libraries in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti may host it, as could exhibit spaces at U-M and EMU.

Some 300-plus guests have seen the exhibit thus far.

"I'd hate to see it sit in storage," Behnke said.

Normally the Museum on Main Street is open to the public only on Saturdays and Sundays, but Behnke has been coming in on weekdays, usually from noon to 4, to welcome daytime visitors. The exhibit will be open seven days a week through Feb. 27.

Behnke and DeLay said they hope “Liberty Awakes” encourages women to understand that women's suffrage was not a historical inevitability, but rather a victory fought for and won by everyday middle-class (though mostly white, given the times) women who were willing to travel the country, many times on their own dime, giving speeches, rallying supporters and agitating against a status quo they saw as unacceptable. Today, the League’s tagline is “Because democracy is not a spectator sport.”

DeLay said she hopes young women who come in and like what they see will be inspired to join the local League of Women Voters, whose membership skews old.

"When people come in, we want them to ask questions," Behnke said. "We want people to get to know these women and their contributions, and to think about what their own contribution will be."

"Liberty Awakes: Winning the Vote for Women in Washtenaw County" can be seen at the Museum on Main Street, 500 N. Main Street, from noon to 4 p.m. every day through Sunday, Feb. 27. For more information on the Ann Arbor Area League of Women Voters, go to http://lwvannarbor.org

James David Dickson can be reached at JamesDickson@AnnArbor.com.