Carrie Chapman Catt Papers, 1880-1958
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Sophia Smith Collection Smith CollegeNorthampton, MA
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collection
Carrie Chapman Catt Papers
Creation of Carrie Chapman Catt Papers
Time of Creation of Carrie Chapman Catt Papers
Catt, Carrie Chapman, 1859-1947
Biographical History for: Carrie Chapman Catt Papers
Biographical Note "One of longshore girls driving an auto truck." Photo by Underwood and Underwood, 1917 Carrie Lane Chapman Catt was born on January 9, 1859 in Ripon, Wisconsin, the second of three children of Lucius Lane and Maria Clinton. When Carrie was seven years old the family moved to Charles City, Iowa, where she spent the rest of her childhood. She taught at a country school until she saved enough money to pay for college, and entered Iowa State College from which she graduated in three years instead of the usual four. In 1880, following her graduation, she studied law before becoming principal of the high school in Mason City, Iowa. She later became the first female superintendent of the district. In 1885, Catt married Leo Chapman, editor-owner of the Mason City Republican, which she helped him manage. Following his death in 1886, she was employed in the newspaper business in San Francisco, where she became increasingly aware of the inequalities facing women in the business and industrial arenas. Leaving San Francisco less than a year later, she returned to Iowa where she began lecturing on the status of women in the United States. Catt was convinced that women's inequality was based on their lack of political power, and she focused her efforts on women's suffrage. She joined the Iowa Woman Suffrage Association and was elected State Organizer in 1887. In 1890 she was invited to address the convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) in Washington, D.C., where she met important suffrage activists, among them Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Julia Ward Howe. Following the convention, she married George W. Catt, a successful hydraulic engineer. When Susan B. Anthony retired as president of NAWSA in 1900, she named Catt her successor. Catt used her position to forge new alliances with women across the world, calling an international suffrage conference in 1902. The conference was attended by representatives from nine countries and led to the founding of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance. By the time Catt retired as president of NAWSA twenty-one years later, forty countries had branches of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance and twenty of these had enfranchised women fully. After 1904, when she was forced to step down from the NAWSA presidency because of her husband's poor health, Catt turned her attention to achieving suffrage in New York State, which she felt was critical to passage of a federal suffrage amendment. Due largely to her efforts, which included consolidating disparate city groups into the Woman Suffrage Party (1910), and organizing and chairing the Empire State Campaign (1913-14), in 1917 the New York State Legislature finally passed a referendum granting women the right to vote. From this point, the struggle for national women's suffrage became more intense and Catt was an increasingly charismatic symbol of the movement. During World War One she was asked to take on the presidency of NAWSA once again, in part to facilitate keeping the idea of women's suffrage in the forefront of American politics. As a member of the Woman's Division of the Council for National Defense, she was able to push Congress to submit the Nineteenth Amendment in June of 1919, and on August 26, 1920, the federal amendment granting women's suffrage was signed into law. After suffrage was won, Catt founded the National League of Women Voters to help newly-enfranchised women navigate the election process. Throughout the rest of her life, Catt worked tirelessly for pacifism, disarmament, and the peaceful settlement of international disputes, most notably by attempting to create a common international program of peace. In 1925, she invited international women's organizations to work together to form a disarmament program at the First Conference on the Cause and Cure of War in Washington, D.C. At this conference, a permanent Committee on the Cause and Cure of War was formed, comprised of the chief officers of the member organizations. Catt served as chairman until 1933, when she retired. The committee specialized in "marathon round tables" for the study of international conflicts. In addition to being a prolific writer of editorials, speeches and pamphlets on the women's movement, she collaborated with Nettie Rogers Shuler in writing Woman Suffrage and Politics (1923) and on her own wrote a book, Why Wars Must Cease (1935). Catt was given honorary doctorates from the University of Wyoming, Iowa State College, Smith College, and Moravian College for Women. In 1936, during her fiftieth anniversary celebration as a suffragist and pacifist, she was escorted to the White House by the presidents of several national women's organizations where President and Mrs. Roosevelt received her. In 1940, Catt organized the last event of her career, the Woman's Centennial Conference in New York, which celebrated the first one hundred years of the feminist movement in the United States. Carrie Chapman Catt died at home in New Rochelle, New York on March 9, 1947 at age 88. Carrie Chapman Catt Papers 3
Scope and Contents of the Collection The Carrie Chapman Catt Papers date from 1880 to 1958 and consist of 1.75 linear feet of material relating primarily to her public life. Types of material include correspondence, speeches, pamphlets, photographs, reports, journal and newspaper articles, and political cartoons. The bulk of the papers surround Catt's work as president of both the National American Woman Suffrage Association and the International Woman Suffrage Alliance. There is also a significant amount of material pertaining to her peace activities, including the National Committee on the Cause and Cure of War. Major topics include federal- and state-level suffrage for women, the peaceful settlement of international disputes, and building an international network promoting women's equality. The collection is compelling as a record of the lengthy struggle for women's suffrage in the United States, and the powerful network of women's organizations that sprang out of that struggle. Catt published many short pamphlets describing her vision of feminism and women's suffrage that may be of particular interest to scholars. The papers also contain a rich collection of photographs, including many of the Women's Land Army, created in Great Britain during World War II to aid in the war effort. Most women lived at home and were transported each day to farms, where they hoed, weeded, thinned, and harvested crops of all kinds; many supervised youth platoons, especially teachers out of school for the summer. A few worked year round, especially on poultry and dairy farms, while others worked in canneries or were leaders for recruiting other women.
Peace movements--History--20th century--Sources
lcsh
Women and peace--History--20th century--Sources
Women--Suffrage--History--Sources
Women--Suffrage--New York (State)--Sources
Women's Land Army (Great Britain)--Photographs
Women's rights--History--20th century--Sources
Anthony, Susan B. (Susan Brownell), 1820-1906
lcnaf
Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924--Correspondence
International Woman Suffrage Alliance
National American Woman Suffrage Association--History--Sources
National Committee on the Cause and Cure of War (U.S.)
series
SERIES I. BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL (1880-1958)
This series includes several biographical sketches as well as clippings about Catt's political activities, including women's suffrage and pacifism; her obituaries; information regarding the Carrie Chapman Catt memorial fund; and personal photographs.
SERIES II. CORRESPONDENCE (1892-1947)
Correspondence comprises roughly a quarter of the collection. Of particular interest to scholars may be Catt's involvement in political machinations surrounding the naming of a new police chief in Washington, D.C in 1919. In addition, there is correspondence with state senators and representatives regarding support for a federal amendment granting women's suffrage; with President Woodrow Wilson; with colleagues within the National American Woman Suffrage Association; and regarding her peace activism. This series offers insight into the skilled political organization that was required, and achieved in large measure by Catt, in order for the women's suffrage movement to be successful.
SERIES III. WRITINGS (1902-44)
Catt's writings are extensive and include pamphlets, articles, brochures and speeches written on behalf of the National American Woman Suffrage Movement, the National League of Women Voters, the International Alliance of Women for Suffrage and Equal Citizenship, and the National Committee on the Cause and Cure of War. Also included are speeches promoting the adoption of a federal women's suffrage amendment; memoranda regarding charges that Catt had "communist sympathies"; and the Carrie Chapman Catt Citizenship Course, a year-long segment appearing in The Woman Citizen, designed to educate women voters.
SERIES IV. SUBJECT FILES (1914-34)
These files are comprised of a collection of photographs documenting the Women's Land Army, a collection of suffrage cartoons, and miscellaneous writings and reports on subjects and activities pertaining to women's suffrage. The photographs are arranged in two folders with copies appearing first and originals in the second folder. Similarly, the cartoons are arranged in five folders; dated copies appear first, followed by dated originals. Undated copies are arranged in alphabetical order by title or by first word of text. Writings include the Report of the Eighth Conference for the International Woman Suffrage Alliance; miscellaneous writings on women's suffrage, including an article appearing in The Woman Citizen; and a program of the Women's Centennial Congress.
Biographical sketch: articles and clippings, n.d.
Obituaries, 1947
Clippings
"King business," 1918
Peace activism, 1918-45, n.d.
Women's suffrage, 1915-34, n.d.
Memorials, 1941-58, n.d.
Memorial Fund, 1948-58, n.d.
Personal photographs
Photocopies and duplicates, 1890-1938, n.d.
Originals, 1880-1938, n.d.
Book: Carrie Chapman Catt by Mary Grey Peck, 1944
Miscellaneous
Bookplate, n.d.
Menu, 1934
Clippings and poster, 1923, 1939, n.d.
Outgoing
Brown, Gertrude F., 1916-46, n.d.
Fast, Louise K., 1934-43
National American Woman Suffrage Association, 1920-47
Park, Maud Wood, 1918-44
Wilson, Woodrow and Cabinet members, 1919-20
Shuler, Marjorie, 1918-20
U.S. Delegates to U.N. Conference, 1945
U.S. Senators and Representatives, 1918-20
Incoming
Park, Maud Wood, 1918
Reilly, Caroline, 1919
Shuler, Marjorie, 1918-19, n.d.
White, Ruth, 1918, n.d.
Wilson, Woodrow, 1917-20
U.S. Senators and Representatives, 1918-19
Willard, Mabel, 1918-19, n.d.
Telegrams to and from Catt, 1918-20
Miscellaneous, 1918-41
Book: Woman Suffrage and Politics, by Carrie Chapman Catt and Nettie Rogers Shuler, 1926
Pamphlets and articles: NAWSA and others, 1908-43, n.d.
Speeches
General, 1921-44, n.d.
"The Cause and Cure of War," 1921-39, n.d.
Federal Amendment for Women's Suffrage, 1904-19, n.d.
League of Women Voters, 1920-30
NAWSA, 1902-19
International Woman Suffrage Alliance, 1908-23
Confidential memos re: charges of communist sympathies, 1924
Carrie Chapman Catt Citizenship Course, The Woman Citizen, 3 Apr 1920-23 Apr 1921
Suffrage
Cartoons
Photocopies
Undated, A-Z
Originals
Undated A-Z, untitled
International Woman Suffrage Alliance: Report of Eighth Congress, 1920
Miscellaneous notes, 1917-18, n.d.
Women's Land Army: photographs
Photocopies, 1917-18, n.d.
Originals, 1917-18, n.d.
Women's Centennial Congress: program, mission, and clippings, 1940
OVERSIZE MATERIALS
Poster: Omaha League of Women Voters, 4 Dec 1923
Clipping: New York Herald Tribune, 15 Jan 1929
Article: New York Times Magazine, 7 Jun 1934