Bio of Carrie Chapman Catt--Intro and Chapter 1

Chapter 9

In spite of illness and personal losses, Carrie continued her work as president of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance.  In 1906, Carrie organized an IWSA convention in Denmark.  At that time the Alliance was joined by four new branches, from Canada, Hungary, Italy and Russia.  Soon after the convention, Danish women were granted the right to vote in city elections.

            Carrie continued her visit to Europe by traveling through parts of what was then the Austrian Empire and is now Austria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.  She made speeches about woman suffrage in the major cities and helped get people interested in the suffrage cause.  Dr Aletta Jacobs, a leading Dutch suffragist, was Carrie’s companion during this tour.

            One of the problems Carrie faced during the Czech and Slovak portions of her trip were the divisions among her audience.  The Czech and Slovak women were not on speaking terms with the women in those areas who spoke German.  As a result Carrie had to hold two meetings in some towns, one for Czech or Slovak women and one for women of German background.

            The next IWSA convention was held in Amsterdam in 1908.  The Alliance continued to gain new branches, as national suffrage organizations from Bulgaria, South Africa, Finland and Switzerland became members.

            This was a time of great excitement for the international suffrage movement.  Norway had granted full voting rights to women and sent an official delegation to the IWSA convention.  In England, the suffragists were holding very large and sometimes-violent protest marches.  All around the world people were paying close attention to the English suffrage movement and thinking about what their own country’s position should be on “the suffrage question”.

            Some American women were working with the English suffragists and participating in their protests.  They thought that American suffragists should also be making public demonstrations and that NAWSA was too conservative in its tactics.  This was the beginning of a split in the U.S. suffrage movement between the traditional movement represented by NAWSA and more radical groups.  But would this division cripple the movement like the old split between the National and American Associations?

            By now Carrie was almost fifty years old.  She had won the respect of suffragists of all nationalities and philosophies for her abilities as an organizer and speaker, her diplomatic skills, her personal dignity and commitment to reform.  Carrie set the tone for unity in a speech at the Amsterdam convention:

In the long run it cannot matter where the victory comes earliest, since our cause is not national but international. … We must grow closer to each other; we must learn to help each other, to give courage to the fainthearted and cheer to the disappointed of all lands.  Within our Alliance we must develop a spirit of internationalism, a spirit so clarified from all personalities and ambitions and even national antagonisms that its purity and grandeur will furnish new inspiration to all workers in our cause.

            The cause of equal suffrage and social emancipation was something that all women could share.

            As the IWSA continued to grow stronger, Carrie began spending more time on suffrage activities in the United States, and particularly in New York, where Carrie had lived for many years.  She put together an organization made up of all the suffrage clubs in and around New York City.  Soon after, with the help of Mary Hay, she founded the Woman Suffrage Party of New York, which was organized like the Democratic Party, with representatives from each assembly district.  Organizers in many other states and cities soon followed the example of the Woman Suffrage Party by organizing on a local level so that every election district was covered.

            During this period, Carrie became very tired and sick.  She had to reduce her suffrage work and spend more time resting.  She eventually had an operation and began to feel somewhat better.

            In the meantime, the suffrage workers in the State of Washington arranged for an election on whether to give voting rights to women.  The male voters approved woman suffrage by a large majority and Washington became the fifth state to grant equal voting rights to women.  For the first time in many years, the woman suffrage movement in the U.S. had a victory to celebrate.