Carrie chapman catt winning plan

The “Winning Plan”, National Woman’s Party, and Littering.

After the defeat of the 1915 New York state suffrage campaign, Carrie Chapman Catt dissolved her “Woman Suffrage Party” (Episode 51) and reluctantly became president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) for a second time. This time she changed tactics. Calling it her “Winning Plan”, she only concentrated on states that had the best chance of passing state suffrage amendments. NAWSA’s funds would be used more effectively by avoiding “detour” states that were unlikely to pass suffrage, such as many southern states. Much of the critical funding for NAWSA’s publications came from the “Empress of Journalism” and extremely colorful character Miriam Folline Squire Leslie. Leslie was known by many variations of her name including legally changing it in 1881 to that of her third husband, Frank Leslie, in order to save his publishing business by running it herself after his death. She left nearly two million dollars to “Mrs Carrie Chapman Catt … to the furtherance of the cause of Woman's Suffrage”.  Half of the inheritance was spent fighting descendants who contested the will but after two years, Catt was able to use the rest of the money (about one million dollars) to fulfill Leslie’s wishes.

In June of 1916, The Congressional Union (Alice Paul’s group) sponsored the National Woman’s Party Convention in Chicago. The CU rebranded itself as the National Woman’s Party (NWP) declaring the NWP to be the world’s first female political party and vowing to use the power of current women voters to influence politicians to pass a national suffrage amendment. 

And now… littering

People, including suffragists, were a little less concerned about littering in the early 1900s. In 1913 Rosalie Jones, a popular leader of the famous suffrage hikes, was a passenger on a plane during the opening ceremony of an air carnival in Staten Island, NY. As the plane soared over the crowds, she dropped a suffrage

Author Biographies

Laurel Bower is a Producer/Director for Iowa PBS, where she has produced programs and documentaries for 25 years. Her latest documentary is entitled Carrie Chapman Catt: Warrior for Women. It premiered on Iowa PBS in May 2020 and is currently being distributed to other PBS stations nationwide. Kathleen Grathwol is a former professor of English and Women’s Studies, specializing in 18th-century British literature. She taught for a number of years at Suffolk University in Boston and at Howard University in Washington, DC. She is the author of numerous scholarly articles and has been the recipient of fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Mellon Foundation, New York University, and Suffolk University. She currently runs her own consulting company and works as an education consultant, writer, and editor. Contributing Editor Anne M. Boylan is Professor Emerita of History and Women and Gender Studies at the University of Delaware. She is the author of scholarly articles and four books: Sunday School: The Formation of An American Institution, 1790-1880 (Yale University Press 1988); The Origins of Women’s Activism: New York and Boston, 1797-1840 (University of North Carolina Press 2002); Women’s Rights in the United States: A History in Documents (Oxford University Press 2015); and Votes for Delaware Women (University of Delaware Press, forthcoming).


Footnotes

[1] Before becoming a state in 1889, South Dakota Territory had twice come very close to ratifying full women’s suffrage. The measure lost by one vote in 1875, and was again defeated after passage in the territorial legislature by a gubernatorial veto in 1885.

[2] “Carrie Chapman Catt’s ‘Winning Plan’,” Changing Strategies of NAWSA and NWP, Library of Congress, accessed April 16, 2020.

[3] “Did You Know? Alice Paul Versus Carrie Chapman

The 19th Amendment made it illegal to deny a person the right to vote based on gender. With the passage of the amendment women all over America were able to vote for the first time. It took 52 years of struggle to pass an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that allowed women to vote.

An Iowan—Carrie Chapman Catt—led the cause and dominated the efforts to pass the 19th Amendment. She devoted 30 years of her 50 year public service career working for woman suffrage. Catt was known as “the brains of the woman’s suffrage movement.” Her greatest achievement in life was reached on August 26, 1920, when the state of Tennessee became the 36th and final state needed to ratify the 19th Amendment. It was because of Carrie Chapman Catt’s dedication to the cause, her brilliant organization skills, and tireless writing and speaking efforts that American women were allowed to vote.

Pioneer Upbringing

Carrie Lane was born January 9, 1859 in Ripon, Wisconsin. When she was seven years old the family moved to a farm near Charles City, Iowa. Her girlhood home can still be found southeast of Charles City. She grew up in an atmosphere influenced by attitudes of the frontier times. A curious child and an avid reader, she began to establish her own feminist principles at a young age. At the age of six in the first grade she slapped a rude boy in the face after he teased a classmate who had lost her hoop skirt.

At the age of 13 she wondered why her father could vote could not in the 1872 presidential election, but her mother. Before the Civil War era the only people who could vote were white males who were age 21 or over, who owned property or who could show proof of military service.

Carrie graduated from Charles City High School in just three years. Her father opposed his daughter’s wish to attend college. She wanted to become a teacher. He didn’t think a girl should get a college education. However, she was determined to

Carrie Chapman Catt was a leading figure in the women's suffrage movement, known for her instrumental role in securing the passage of the 19th Amendment, granting American women the right to vote.

Carrie Chapman Catt founded the League of Women Voters in 1920 to support newly enfranchised women and promote civic engagement.

She was an advocate for international peace and women’s rights, co-founding the International Alliance of Women, which focused on advancing gender equality worldwide.

“This world taught woman nothing skillful and then said her work was valueless. It permitted her no opinions and said she did not know how to think. It forbade her to speak in public and said the sex had no orators,” 

Presidential Address to National American Woman Suffrage Association, February 12, 1902

Carrie Clinton Lane Chapman Catt, a masterful political strategist, suffragist, and peace activist, played a pivotal role in securing the right to vote for American women. As the leader of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and the founder of the League of Women Voters in 1920 to bring women into the political mainstream, she worked tireless for White women to have equal voting rights.

A Seed is Planted: Early Life and Education

Carrie Chapman Catt was born on January 9, 1859, in Ripon, Wisconsin, to Maria Clinton and Lucius Lane, who were farmers originally from Potsdam, New York. She grew up as the second of three children. When she was seven, her family moved to Charles City, Iowa, where Catt attended preparatory school. At age 13, she witnessed her parents publicly supporting Horace Greeley in the 1872 presidential election, at that moment exposed her to the glaring gender inequities in voting and sparked her interest in social justice.

Although Catt was known to be a private woman, even as a child, her peers recognized her to be self-confident and well-liked by people throughout her life. Catt attended Iowa State Agricultural Col