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Carrie Chapman Catt Facts

Carrie Chapman Catt Facts
Carrie Chapman Catt was an early twentieth century women's rights advocate and one of the leading forces behind the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which gave American women the right to vote. Chapman Catt was a tireless organizer and political advocate throughout the course of her life, having started or helped organize such groups as the National American Woman Suffrage Movement, the League of Women Voters, and the International Alliance of Women. Catt was born Carrie Clinton Lane in Ripon, Wisconsin on January 9, 1859 to a family of farmers. She was primarily raised in northern Iowa and did well enough in school to earn admission to Iowa State Agricultural College (Iowa State University) in Ames, Iowa. She graduated head of her class in 1880 and went on to hold various jobs in her life, including: law clerk, school superintendent, reporter, and political activist. Carrie married Leo Chapman in 1885, but he died a year later. Carrie later married fellow Iowa State alumnus, George Catt, in 1890 and the couple remained married until his death in 1905.
Interesting Carrie Chapman Catt Facts:
Carrie's father, Lucius, was initially reluctant to let her attend college and only paid for part of her tuition. She paid for the rest of her expenses by teaching in rural northern Iowa schools.
Catt's first foray into women's rights activism came during college when she defied a rule of the Crescent Literary Society that prohibited females from speaking: she would later start an all-female debate club.
George Catt supported Carrie's activism.
Catt spoke to Congress in 1892 about women's suffrage on behalf of the National Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA).
A rift developed between Catt and Elizabeth Cady Stanton in the late 1890s over the direction of the suffrage movement: Catt believed that Stanton's views were too radical.
She succeeded Susan B. Anthony as the president of the NAWSA, serving two terms in the position - 1900-1904 and 1915-1920.
Catt was instrumental in organizing the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (IWSA) in 1902 and served as the organization's president from 1904 until 1923.
The IWSA served as an umbrella organization for suffrage groups in thirty-two countries.
Know as being politically pragmatic, Catt would tailor her pro-suffrage speeches in southern states to appeal to appeal to pro-segregation attitudes.
Catt was the 1920 vice presidential candidate on the Commonwealth Land Party ticket.
She was quite well-traveled in a period before Interstate highways and commercial airlines, having lived in Wisconsin, Iowa, California, and New York among other places.
Catt was vehemently opposed to the United States' involvement in World War I, but was equally against Germany's National Socialist government of the 1930s and 1940s.
Carrie was featured on a 1948 postal stamp, along with Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, commemorating the Seneca Falls Convention.
Carrie Chapman Catt died on March 9, 1947 of a heart attack at her home in New Rochelle, New York.
Instead of being buried next to her husband George, Carrie was interned next to friend and fellow suffragette Mary Garret Hay.


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