<P> Stanton's election as president was largely symbolic . Before the convention was over, she left for another extended stay with her daughter in England, leaving Anthony in charge . Stanton retired from the presidency in 1892, after which Anthony was elected to the position that she had in practice been occupying all along . Stone, who died in 1893, did not play a major role in the NAWSA . </P> <P> The movement's vigor declined in the years immediately after the merger . The new organization was small, having only about 7000 dues - paying members in 1893 . It also suffered from organizational problems, not having a clear idea of, for example, how many local suffrage clubs there were or who their officers were . </P> <P> In 1893, NAWSA members May Wright Sewall, former chair of NWSA's executive committee, and Rachel Foster Avery, NAWSA's corresponding secretary, played key roles in the World's Congress of Representative Women at the World's Columbian Exposition, which was also known as the Chicago World's Fair . Sewall served as chair and Avery as secretary of the organizing committee for the women's congress . </P> <P> In 1893, the NAWSA voted over Anthony's objection to alternate the site of its annual conventions between Washington and other parts of the country . Anthony's pre-merger NWSA had always held its conventions in Washington to help maintain focus on a national suffrage amendment . Anthony said she feared, accurately as it turned out, that the NAWSA would engage in suffrage work at the state level at the expense of national work . The NAWSA routinely allocated no funding at all for congressional work, which at this stage consisted only of one day of testimony before Congress each year . </P>

Who led the national american woman suffrage association