For most Americans the most important event of 1917 was the entrance of the U.S. into the European war. But for Carrie the crucial battle was the second suffrage campaign in New York State. Carrie concentrated on her work with the New York Woman Suffrage Party and getting the federal amendment campaign started, while also doing what she could to keep her supporters from being distracted by the war.
The 1917 New York campaign was even better organized than the 1915 campaign. Because of the war it didn’t seem right to stage many large public events. The suffrage workers concentrated on going door-to-door, trying to convince every household to join their cause. They collected more than a million women’s signatures on a petition asking the male voters for the right to vote. Carrie led a big parade up Fifth Avenue in New York City just before the election. The marchers carried so many banners with arguments for woman suffrage that is was like watching a speech walk by.
The result of the election was a great victory, more important than any before in the history of the cause. The suffrage issue had been carried in New York City by more than 100,000 votes, easily enough to overcome a small deficit among the voters outside of the city.
It was a triumph for Carrie’s organization that so many of the voters in conservative upstate New York had been persuaded to support women’s voting rights. But the large margin of victory in New York City was the key. This was a personal victory for Carrie’s old friend and chief helper Mary Garrett Hay. Mary Hay had made the New York City suffrage organization so strong and effective that Tammany Hall, the notorious Democratic Party “machine”, decided it would be best not to try to defeat the suffragists with phony ballots, intentional miscounting of votes, or any of Tammany’s other ways of stealing elections. This left the way clear for the overwhelming success by the suffragists in the city.
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Bio of Carrie Chapman Catt--Intro and Chapter 1
Non-FictionThis is a biography for young people about the great feminist leader Carrie Chapman Catt.
