Carrie Chapman Catt (1859-1947) was an American suffragist, skilled political strategist and peace advocate.
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Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I’m Jenny Kaplan. And this is Encyclopedia Womannica.
Today we’re talking about an inspiring American suffragist. She was a skilled political strategist and peace advocate. Let’s talk about Carrie Chapman Catt.
Carrie Lane was born on January 9, 1859 in Wisconsin, the second of her parents’ three children. When she was six, her family moved to a farm near Charles City, Iowa at the close of the Civil War. Growing up, Carrie was a voracious reader, often memorizing and reciting entire columns in the paper.
Carrie said she became a suffragist at a very young age when she learned that her mother lacked the same voting rights as her father. Carrie later said: “It was fate, not a career that took me in charge. I could never forget that rank injustice to my mother. I verily believe I was born a suffragist”
Carrie enrolled at Iowa State University in 1877 where she was the only woman in her graduating class. She worked her way through school by washing dishes and serving as a librarians’ assistant. Carrie enjoyed extracurricular activities too - she was the first female student to give an oration before a debating society and helped start military drills for girls.
After graduation, Carrie began working as a teacher and principal. At age 24, she became Mason City school superintendent – one of the first women to be appointed to such a position. Two years later, she married a newspaper publisher, Leo Chapman. Leo died of typhoid fever the following year. After a period of grieving, she began working at a newspaper in San Francisco.
In 1887 Carried returned to Iowa and joined the Iowa Woman Suffrage Association. She worked as a lecturer and writer. Four years after her first husband’s death, she married engineer George W. Catt, who she had first met in college.
Around that time, Carrie also became active in the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). She became head of field organizing in 1895 and five years later, succeeded Susan B. Anthony as president. Because of her stellar speaking and writing skills, she became known as a leading suffragist.
In 1904, she resigned as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association to care for her sick husband. He died in October 1905, starting a succession of deaths in Carrie’s life including Susan B. Anthony in 1906, and her younger brother William and her mother in 1907. Friends encouraged a grief-stricken Carrie to spend time abroad – she spent the next nine years advocating for equal suffrage globally as the president of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance.
In 1915, at the request of many suffragists, Carrie returned to the U.S and resumed leadership of the National American Woman Suffrage Association - which at the time was divided over suffrage strategies. At that point, just a few states had granted women the right to vote.
Carrie famously said in 1916: “The time for woman suffrage has come. The woman’s hour has struck”.
Under her leadership, several critical states approved women’s suffrage including New York in 1917. The next year, President Woodrow Wilson changed his stance on suffrage and supported a national Constitutional amendment. The Amendment was passed by Congress in 1919 and was ratified by the states and added to the Constitution 100 years ago last month, in August of 1920. Many attest this triumph to Carrie’s imaginative and resourceful leadership. Soon after, Carrie reorganized the suffrage association into the League of Women Voters to work for strengthening progressive legislation throughout the country.
In the 1920s, Carrie was an active international peace advocate. At the start of World War I, she joined with Jane Adams to organize the Women’s Peace Party. During the interwar period, she worked for Jewish refugee relief efforts and child labor protection laws. In 1933, in response to Hitler’s rise to power, Carrie organized a signed letter of over 9,000 non-Jewish American women condemning repressive laws against German Jews. She pressured the U.S government to ease immigration restrictions for Jews fleeing Germany. For her work, Carrie became the first woman to receive the American Hebrew Medal.
After World War II, she actively used her influence to have qualified women placed on certain UN commissions.
Carrie died of heart failure in New York on March 9, 1947. She donated her entire estate to Iowa State, her alma mater.
Carrie gained praise for her work both during and after her lifetime. She was featured on the cover of Time magazine in 1926, and received the Pictorial Review Award for her work in international disarmament in 1930. In 1941, Eleanor Roosevelt gave Carrie the Chi Omega award at the White House. In 1992, Carrie was honored as one of the 10 most important women of the century by the Iowa Centennial Memorial Foundation. Today, Carrie’s childhood home in Iowa has been converted into a museum honoring her legacy and the history of the women’s suffrage movement.
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