“If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.” — Abigail Adams (wife of John Adams, second President of the United States)
Throughout human history and prehistory, women’s roles were played out mostly within their families. Throughout the many millennia of hunting and gathering bands, human communities seldom grew to more than a few dozen members, so men and women were relatively equal in their contributions to the welfare of the whole group. After the agricultural revolution and the rise of large communities, women’s public roles became generally subservient to those played by men. Before the advent of modern technology, much of the work needed for human survival involved physical muscle and skills developed mostly by men and boys. Throughout the ancient world, average life expectancy was less than thirty years; thus women had to specialize in child-bearing and child-rearing simply to safeguard human survival.
Looking back over the millennia, virtually all of the military and political leaders in every culture were men, as were all the founders of the world’s major religions. In the Christian religion, the figure of Mary, a Jewish woman paradoxically believed to be the virgin mother of Jesus of Nazareth, was revered precisely because she was both a virgin and a nurturing mother, not because she exercised power or played any kind of formal leadership role. Eighteen centuries later, when the American Revolution established basic principles of democratic governance, the new nation staked its future on the educated wisdom of its citizens, but vested all political power in white land-owning men. As the US Constitution was being drafted, Abigail Adams, wife of the second American president, implored her husband John to “remember the ladies,” but to virtually no avail.
The American Revolution overthrew an obsolete and sometimes brutal form of government based on the dominance of first-born sons that had held sway for several millennia. The United States Constitution, ratified in 1787, promised political freedom for all citizens, as long as they were male and white. Meanwhile, several generations of wise and courageous women began building a crusade for equal voting rights. In 1792 in England, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Women, which called for gender equality in political governance.
By the middle of the nineteenth century in the United States, the movement for women’s rights overlapped with the movement for the abolition of slavery. Abolitionist crusaders like William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass also supported woman suffrage. The first large-scale convention calling for woman suffrage was held in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848. That event was organized by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who also called for the abolition of slavery.
Mrs. Stanton authored a substantial essay entitled “The Declaration of Sentiments,” which expanded on the Declaration of Independence by adding the word “woman” or “women” throughout. She also circulated petitions to urge the New York Congress to pass the Married Women’s Property Act.
Susan B. Anthony, born in 1829, was inspired by the Quaker belief that everyone was equal under God. Stanton and Anthony met in 1851, and the two quickly began collaborating on speeches, articles, and books. Their partnership dominated the woman’s movement for over half a century. When Stanton was unable to travel due to the demands of raising her seven children, she would author speeches for Anthony to deliver.
In 1868, Anthony and Stanton co-founded the American Equal Rights Association and co-edited the Association’s newspaper. When Congress passed the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the US Constitution, awarding voting rights to African American men, they opposed the legislation because it did not include suffrage for women. Their belief led them to split from other suffragists and create yet another organization, the National Woman Suffrage Association. In 1872, Anthony was arrested and fined $100 for voting, which brought national attention to the suffrage movement. In 1876, she led a protest at the American Revolution Centennial celebration.
In 1888, thanks to Anthony’s leadership, the two largest suffrage associations were merged into the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Anthony led that organization until 1900, traveling the nation, giving speeches, gathering thousands of signatures on petitions, and lobbying Congress.
Carrie Lane was born on January 9, 1859, in Ripon, Wisconsin, five years after the anti-slavery Republican Party was founded in Ripon’s little white schoolhouse and one year before Abraham Lincoln was elected the first Republican president. Her family later relocated to Iowa, where she became the only woman in her graduating class at what is now Iowa State University. In 1885, she married newspaper editor Leo Chapman, who died a year later. In 1890, she married engineer George Catt.
In the late 1880s, she joined the Iowa Woman Suffrage Association, though her interest dated back to her teen years when she realized her mother lacked the voting rights her father enjoyed. After joining the National American Woman Suffrage Association, she was tapped to give speeches and help organize local chapters nationwide. In 1900, she was elected the association’s president, succeeding Susan B. Anthony.
Recognizing the international dimensions of the suffrage issue, in 1902 Mrs. Catt founded the International Woman Suffrage Alliance to spread democracy around the globe. In 1904, she retired briefly to care for her dying husband, who passed away a year later. That loss, combined with those of her brother, mother, and Susan B. Anthony, left her emotionally drained. To heal, she spent several years traveling abroad and serving as president of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance. In 1915, she helped create the Woman’s Peace Party and resumed the NAWSA presidency.
In 1920, during the annual NAWSA convention, she spearheaded creation of the League of Women Voters, just six months before the Woman Suffrage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. In 1923, she published a history of the suffrage movement and turned her attention to issues of child labor and world peace, organizing the Committee on the Cause and Cure of War in 1925. Concerned about Hitler’s growing power, she worked on behalf of German Jewish refugees and was awarded the American Hebrew Medal in 1933. Mrs. Catt served as the League of Women Voters’ honorary president until her death in 1947. In Module 6, featuring four case studies of significant leaders, we’ll address the life and impact of Mrs. Catt in greater detail.
A century after its founding, the League of Women Voters claims more than seven hundred local leagues in all fifty states. Its official mission is “Empowering voters. Defending democracy.” The League has remained staunchly nonpartisan during its history of service, and it has fostered the rise of dozens of organizations fighting for democratic practices and principles, including gender equality. It cleared a path for subsequent crusades like the National Organization for Women, founded in 1966, and the #MeToo movement in 2006. Carrie Lane Chapman Catt is also one of the four historical examples of far-reaching leadership addressed in Module 6 of this curriculum.
