Catt, Carrie Chapman

• Lane, Carrie Clinton

Carrie Chapman Catt was a suffragist and women's rights campaigner who helped to lead the campaign for legalising women's right to vote in the United States - the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Born in Iowa, Catt attended Iowa State Agricultural College (now Iowa State University) graduating with a BSc. After school she worked as a law clerk and later as a teacher, and then superintendent of schools for Mason City, Iowa. In 1885 she married newspaper editor Leo Chapman and the couple moved to San Francisco. Chapman died of typhoid fever the next year buy Catt stayed on in San Francisco becoming the city's first female reporter. In 1887 she returned to Iowa and became involved in the Iowa Woman Suffrage Association, as well as with the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). In 1892 she was invited by Susan B. Anthony to speak before the American Congress on the matter of suffrage. While a member of the NAWSA she was against the writings and influence of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and pushed for the NAWSA to distance itself from her views. Catt became president of the NAWSA from 1900-1904 and after stepping down to care for her ailing second husband, George Catt, again from 1915-1920.

While campaigning for the vote Catt espoused racist and discriminatory views including arguing that Indigenous Americans and immigrants to the United States should not have the vote, as well as stating that giving women equal suffrage would strengthen the cause of White Supremacy. When the Nineteenth Amendment was passed in 1920 Catt retired from NAWSA but continued to be involved in other organizations that she founded such as the League of Women Voters, as well as the International Women's Suffrage Alliance.

Besides campaigning for women's rights, she was also a peace activist working on and off on peace organizations during both the First and Second World Wars. Catt died in 1947 at her home in New York.

JB Nov. 2019.

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