Influencing the public

Trout put in place a modern, multi-pronged plan to build public support for woman suffrage. She made sure that a local suffrage club was formed in each district, so that organization members could then lobby representatives as needed.^[11] She strategically planned public events throughout the state, such as automobile and speaking tours, in order to generate and highlight local support. She regularly cultivated media connections in Springfield and Chicago to get favorable newspaper coverage of IESA activities, and she cooperated with newspaper publishers to produce special sections. She wrote that she regularly "made it a point to see one or more managers of the newspapers and explain to them the difficulties we were encountering, and asked them to publish an editorial that would be helpful to the situation...We had these various newspapers containing suffrage propaganda folded so that the editorial (blue penciled) came on the outside." She would then have the newspapers placed on the relevant legislators' desks, making the support appear spontaneous and widespread.^[12]

Influencing the legislature

Under Trout, IESA presence in Springfield changed in that it was much more subtle and quiet than previously. Initially, it was only Trout and legislative chair Elizabeth Booth; later two more joined them. Trout, Booth, Antoinette Leland Funk, and Ruth Hanna McCormick were called "the Big Four" by reporters.^[13] In previous campaigns, Catherine McCulloch's lobbying efforts had included trainloads of women arriving in Springfield, special hearings, and other very visible activities; McCulloch's style was "confrontational" and "militant".^[14] In contrast, Trout's team "kept the IESA’s legislative lobbying behind the scenes, so as not to arouse activity from opponents, especially the powerful liquor industry, and to leave open the possibility of converting anti-suffrage legislators.”^[11]

Trout was diplomatic, exercised "extreme tact," and could even be "ingratiating."^[15] Historian Adade Mitchell Wheeler wrote, "Her techniques may have been politically naive, but her human relations were superb. She and the others were experienced 'people movers.'"^[16] A legislator from Peoria characterized the tactics of the Big Four as "noiseless" in an article published in Collier's shortly after the bill was signed. He described Booth's systematic and analytical use of a homemade card catalogue. She pasted a picture of every member, cut from an Illinois Blue Book, and then noted things like their voting record, likely support, as well as whether they could be appealed to for fair play and how the member's wife felt about suffrage. Trout and Booth used this card system to study and categorize legislators, and build a nonpartisan coalition of support for their cause (there were Progressive, Democratic, Republican, and Socialist members of the legislature).^[17][18]

To influence Speaker of the House William B. McKinley, CPEL members in Chicago organized a telephone brigade that aimed to phone McKinley every fifteen minutes to ensure he saw how extensive suffrage support was.^[19] This resulted in McKinley bringing the bill up for a vote—something that hadn't occurred previously. On the day of the vote, Trout hired a cab for the whole day to transport missing members to the state capitol building if needed, and she herself guarded the door to make sure that supporters didn't leave at a key moment, and that opposing lobbyists didn't illegally get on the floor.^[18]

Additional factors contributing to success

In addition to legislative and public relations strategies outlined above, other factors also shaped the outcome.

First, suffrage had become increasingly acceptable among a wider group of citizens, particularly upper middle-class, educated, conservative women like Trout.^[14] Orchestrated events like the automobile tours helped increase support for suffrage, and helped make suffrage "more respectable."^[1] According to sociologist Steven M. Buechler, the movement transformed from an earlier mostly middle-class movement to a “cross-class, multiconstituency alliance” in which working women and wealthier women both had key roles.^[20]

Additionally, upper-class women held a significant number of leadership positions in the later period of the suffrage movement.^[14] In Trout's case, this resulted in a more reserved and conservative approach. Her partial suffrage bill was less demanding than the state constitutional changes sought by some of her fellow suffragists, like McCulloch. Plus, the English suffragette fight helped by presenting a contrast; as Antoinette Funk said, in England they were blowing up country homes while women in the United States weren’t even making speeches. George Fitch believed the IESA lobby was able to keep the opposition in check "because of its lack of aggressiveness.”^[21]Trout and her associates were willing to negotiate and seek advice, even from opponents. Further, in contrast to McCulloch's goals of wider societal reform and full suffrage, Trout's goal was only to get the vote, which was much less threatening.^[16]

Finally, events in Washington, D.C., also helped increase support for suffrage. The negative aftermath of the Woman Suffrage Parade held on March 3, 1913, the day before President Woodrow Wilson's inauguration, actually helped improve public sentiment. Women were treated so poorly at this event, harassed and heckled by mostly male bystanders, that many people were moved to support suffrage in response to the injustice its proponents received.^[22] In Trout's own account of this march, she did not mention a well-known incident that occurred during the demonstration. When African-American Ida B. Wells wanted to march, Trout demanded that segregation be preserved to avoid offending Southern marchers who might boycott the event; therefore all the black suffragists would have to march in their own group, not with their respective state delegations. While Trout was personally opposed to such exclusion, she was more concerned with avoiding the potential boycott.^[6] Wells ignored the directions and marched alongside her Illinois cohort.^[23]