Bio of Carrie Chapman Catt--Intro and Chapter 1

Chapter 13

Early in 1917, it became clear that President Wilson’s administration and other powerful groups wanted the United States to start fighting on the side of England and France in the war against Germany.  The war had been going on for two and a half years, and France and England had been suffering terrible losses.  Possibly they wouldn’t lose the war, but they didn’t seem to have much chance of winning without help from the United States.

            Carrie was faced with a most difficult problem as the government and other groups started a publicity campaign to convince the American people to enter the war.  Carrie personally hated war.  She had helped to start the Women’s Peace Party, which had worked to try to stop the war and to keep the United States out of it.  Many members of NAWSA were against the U.S. getting involved, but a large number supported the idea of the U.S. joining the fighting.  Carrie did not wish to offend either group.  Most of all, she did not want the suffrage movement to lose public support by opposing the campaign for the U.S. to join France and England.  She could see that the U.S. was certain to enter the war, and that NAWSA could not change things by resisting, but would only be hurt if it tried to resist.

            Carrie reluctantly led the Association to announce that it would support the war effort.  This was a big help to President Wilson, and made him even more indebted to the suffragists.  The Women’s Peace Party asked Carrie to resign and she did.  Some of her old friends were disappointed that Carrie was going along with the war, but Carrie felt she was doing what she had to in order to protect the suffrage movement.

            Carrie made other compromises that she felt were necessary for her cause to succeed.  Although she was not biased herself, she did not want to offend Southern white leaders, so she mainly kept African-American women from being active in the suffrage movement.  Carrie’s message to Southern whites was that they would still be able to keep African-Americans from voting after they gave voting rights to white women.

            Many suffrage workers took part in the huge effort to support the troops that were being sent to Europe.  Carrie made a few speeches about helping the war effort, but mainly she kept on working for suffrage.  She did not want her supporters to get so involved in war work that they dropped out of the suffrage movement.  She felt that this was the time when a final victory could be won.

            The war gave suffragists new arguments for their cause.  The purpose of the war effort was to preserve democracy, but how could the U.S. be a true democracy if almost half the adult citizens were not allowed to vote?  Now that the government was calling for all Americans, both men and women, to do their part, shouldn’t both women and men have equal voices in the government?

            Women were also becoming more and more important in the economy of the United States.  Even before the war, women had worked in many clothing factories, retail stores and offices.  As men joined the army and factories expanded to help the war effort, women took over jobs making metal parts, explosives, guns and chemicals.  They did work that previously had been done only by men.  The build-up for war could not have succeeded without women workers.

            Carrie kept up her quiet cooperation with President Wilson.  When the Woman’s Party, led by Alice Paul, picketed the White House as part of their militant campaign for suffrage, Carrie heard about the plans ahead of time from her friends in the Woman’s Party and warned the President so that he could protect himself from embarrassment.

            Carrie had been careful to keep NAWSA separate from the militant tactics of the Woman’s Party.  She believed that militant tactics would not work well in the United States.  But when militant suffragists of the Woman’s Party demonstrated in the streets and were arrested for blocking traffic, the publicity kept people thinking about the suffrage movement.  The activities of the radicals of the Woman’s Party made Carrie Catt and NAWSA seem quite conservative and respectable.  NAWSA was a group that many women found they could be comfortable joining and many politicians were willing to work with.  After the final victory was won, it was clear that the radicals and the NAWSA had both played important parts in the success of the movement.