In March 1919, NAWSA held its annual convention in St. Louis, Missouri. The delegates celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the National and American Woman Suffrage Associations. They also marked the fiftieth year since women had been granted voting rights in Wyoming, the first state to enfranchise women. The convention prepared for the state-by-state campaign that would follow the expected Congressional passage of the federal suffrage amendment.
With the final victory in sight, Carrie felt the time was right to start a new organization, to be called the League of Women Voters. When the federal amendment was ratified, the number of women with voting rights in the U.S. would be increased from seven million to about 27 million. Carrie saw a need to bring the 20 million new women voters into the political system. She planned to educate them about how the system worked and what they could do with their new political power. She wanted women to be thoughtful and informed citizens who would change politics and improve their country. The new organization would help to achieve these goals. NAWSA had more than two million members and Carrie hoped that many of them would continue to be active in the League after NAWSA had achieved its purpose and ended its activities.
In May, the new Congress convened in Washington. Within two days the House of Representatives had passed the suffrage amendment. In the Senate, the weakened opponents could delay for only a few weeks. This time the amendment passed with 56 votes to 25. The long campaign for women’s voting rights in the U.S. entered its final stage. The suffrage amendment would become law if approved by the legislatures of 36 of the 48 states. The suffrage forces immediately went to work in the states.
By delaying the amendment until 1919, the opponents in the Senate had given the suffragists an additional problem. Most state legislatures were not in session that year, so the suffrage forces would have to arrange for special sessions to be called. The governors of some states were suffrage supporters and called special sessions promptly. Three state legislatures ratified the amendment within one week after passage by the Senate. Six more ratifications came in within the next three weeks. As of the end of September, seventeen states had ratified, but in three states where the opponents were strong, they had brought the amendment up to the legislature in order to defeat it.
By the fall of 1919, the strong suffrage states had approved the amendment, but more approvals were needed, and the victories would not come easily. Many governors were still refusing to call special sessions. The suffragists had to apply pressure and rally their supporters to keep the amendment moving. Carrie spent two months on a tour of thirteen states, speaking at meetings in support of ratification. During November and December, five more states ratified the amendment, and by the middle of February 1920, thirty-one of the needed thirty-six state approvals had been won.
The opponents were not giving up. They tried to have elections by the voters to overturn the state legislatures’ ratifications. However, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Constitution did not permit elections to take back ratifications.
By the spring of 1920, thirty-five states had ratified, and only one more was needed to bring the amendment into effect. By now it was clear that most of the remaining states would not ratify. The opponents were able to concentrate their forces on trying to block the amendment in the states that suffragists might still win. For several months there were no more victories. The governors of Connecticut and Vermont refused to call special sessions. In Virginia, the legislature voted against ratification. One house of the Delaware legislature would not even bring the amendment up for a vote.
After a personal request from President Wilson, the governor of Tennessee called the state legislature into special session to consider the suffrage amendment. Carrie and her supporters, and the opposing forces from all over the country, gathered for a final showdown in Nashville, Tennessee in the stifling heat of August. Representatives from both sides constantly spoke to the Tennessee legislators. Carrie believed the opponents were resorting to bribery and other tricks. Everyone knew that the vote would be close, but it was impossible to say which way it would go. Finally the vote came. The youngest legislator, Harry Burn, was just twenty-four years old. He was from a district that opposed the amendment, but his mother had written a letter to him. She had told him it was his duty to help Mrs. Catt and the suffragists. Burn’s vote made the difference as the amendment was approved by 49 to 47.
The battle that had started more than seventy years before was over. More than 130 years after the establishment of the Constitution, and 55 years after the Civil War, all women in the United States at last had the right to vote.
Carrie returned to New York from Tennessee. On the way she stopped in Washington, where President Wilson met with her and her supporters to congratulate them on their victory. When she arrived in New York there was a big public celebration. Governor Alfred E. Smith and other leading citizens greeted her. She received a bouquet, tied in the yellow ribbon that was the symbol of the suffrage movement. A famous picture of Carrie shows the happiness and relief that was hers. She had led her army of suffragists to win a great reform of the political system. They had opened for all time one of the doors that had been closed to women, while strengthening the ideal of democratic government.
A few months later, the 1920 presidential election was held. Thirty million Americans voted in the election--an enormous increase over the eighteen million votes cast in 1916. The year 1920 marked the greatest peaceful expansion of voting rights that the world had ever seen.
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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.
