Catt, Carrie Chapman

Catt, Carrie Chapman (1859–1947), woman suffrage leader.Born in Wisconsin and reared mostly in Iowa, Catt by the early 1880s was already a widely traveled suffragist. By the late 1880s, recognized as a tireless campaigner, keen strategist, and skilled political tactician, she was a major figure in the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Succeeding Susan B. Anthony as head of NAWSA, she served from 1900 to 1904 and again in 1915–1920, a period that brought victory in New York state in 1917 and final ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment (granting woman suffrage) in 1920. A single‐minded, disciplined leader who considered herself a political realist, Catt employed whatever strategies she believed necessary, including placating white racists in the South. While supporting U.S. involvement in World War I, she always kept the suffrage goal paramount.

In 1919–1920, Catt helped launch the League of Women Voters, to enable newly enfranchised women to exert real political influence. She envisioned the league as a nonpartisan organization that would promote a different politics from the partisan struggle she had come to detest. Catt became active in the international peace movement before and after World War I, but world peace proved a more elusive goal than woman suffrage.

Catt was twice widowed; the 1905 death of her second husband, a successful civil engineer, left her financially independent. In her later years she cultivated close personal relationships with many women. Childless, she nurtured friendships as she had earlier honed her skills at devising the political strategies that made woman suffrage a reality.
See also Peace Movements; Woman Suffrage Movement.

Bibliography

Robert Booth Fowler , Carrie Catt: Feminist Politician, 1988.

Robert Booth Fowler