Why is carrie chapman catt important

Catt saw that suffrage at the state level could help strengthen the movement for a Constitutional amendment -- and where complete state suffrage could not be enacted, Catt would settle for a partial solution.

But it was Catt's leadership - progressive but not radical - that finally led President Wilson to throw his support behind the amendment. Fifty-one years after Susan B. Following this victory,Catt helped establish the League of Women Voters to give American women guidance in using their new franchise. In her later years, Catt spoke on behalf of working women, worked for pacifism, organized the National Conference on the Cause and Cure of War, and lobbied for Jewish refugee relief efforts.

Shortly before her death in New Rochelle, New York in , she would even lend her hand in the founding of the United Nations. Discover the fascinating story of Elizebeth Smith Friedman, the groundbreaking cryptanalyst who helped bring down gangsters and break up a Nazi spy ring in South America. Anthony February , her younger brother September and her mother December left her grief-stricken, and she spent much of the following eight years traveling the world as the president of the International Woman Suffrage Association to promote equal-suffrage rights worldwide.

In , Senator Aaron A. Sargent, a friend of Susan B. The House of Representatives initially passed a voting rights amendment in January , but the Senate did not follow suit before the end of the 65th Congress. The measure finally cleared Congress in with the House again voting its approval on May 21, , and the Senate on June 4, On August 26, , the 19th Amendment was ratified when Tennessee became the 36th state to approve it — by a single vote. Young state congressman Harry Burn had been planning to vote against the amendment.

Emmeline, Christabel and Sylvia Pankhurst, leaders in the English suffrage movement, visited the United States many times. Catt spent much of traveling the world as the president of the IWSA to promote equal-suffrage rights worldwide. She served as IWSA president from and thereafter as honorary chair until her death.

Many of the women active in the suffrage movement shifted their focus to social welfare policies and equal rights legislation. They were successful in establishing a pension program for poor women with children, educational and industrial reform such as child labor laws, and the Sheppard-Towner Act of , which provided states with federal funding for maternity and child care. The number of women in the workplace rose, but very slowly, and employment was predominantly for white women in white-collar jobs such as typing, sales and stenography.

Many of these immediate gains were enjoyed primarily by white women because of barriers to voting in certain states, particularly former Confederate states, and federal restrictions to citizenship already in place on certain immigrant groups.

Some of the state laws dated back to colonial times and some had been put in place to restrict the voting rights of black men after the ratification of the 15th Amendment.

In addition, federal laws passed in the late s and early s barring immigrants of Asian descent from becoming citizens remained in effect through the s and early s, and Native Americans who had not given up their tribal affiliation were not recognized as U. These state and federal laws prevented many people from voting until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of and the and amendments to that act.

In addition to her key role in the passage of the 19th Amendment, Catt also helped establish the national League of Women Voters.

In , she proposed the creation of a nonpartisan educational organization for women voters and on February 14, —six months before the 19th Amendment was ratified—the national League of Women Voters was organized. Catt was honorary president of the LWV for the rest of her life. The LWV remains active today and is frequently a training ground for women who later run for electoral office. Remains in San Francisco, canvassing for ads and writing freelance articles.

Catt in June. Resigns as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association to take care of her ailing husband. House of Representatives passes suffrage amendment on May Senate passes suffrage amendment on June 4.

Continues to work to ensure ratification of 19th Amendment by 36 of 48 state legislatures. Proposes creation of nonpartisan educational organization for women voters. Tennessee becomes 36th state to ratify suffrage amendment on August Secretary of State certifies ratification of 19th Amendment on August Receives Pictorial Review Award for her international disarmament work.

She was a curious, bright and determined child who believed from an early age that women should be afforded the same opportunities as men. Women gained the right to vote in with the passage of the 19 Amendment. On Election Day in , millions of American women exercised this right for the first time. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton Feminism, a belief in the political, economic and cultural equality of women, has roots in the earliest eras of human civilization.

It is typically separated into three waves: first wave feminism, dealing with property rights and the right to vote; second wave feminism, focusing Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. Recommended for you. Florence Nightingale. Anthony Susan B. Women Who Fought for the Vote Women gained the right to vote in with the passage of the 19 Amendment. Constitution, granting women the right to vote. She also founded the League of Women Voters.

When her father refused to pay for college, Catt worked as a teacher to raise the money to attend Iowa State College. The next year, she became a high school principal in Iowa. Moving quickly up the career ladder, she served as the superintendent of schools in Mason City, Iowa, only two years later. In , Catt married Leo Chapman, a newspaper editor. She went to work with him on the Mason City Republican. Her husband died the next year, and Catt went to San Francisco to work for another newspaper.

Returning to Iowa in , Catt began a new phase in her life.