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Carrie Chapman Catt (born Carrie Clinton Lane; January 9, 1859 – March 9, 1947) was an American women's suffrage leader who campaigned for the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which gave U.S. women the right to vote in 1920. Catt served as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association from 1900 to 1904 and 1915 to 1920. She founded the League of Women Voters in 1920 and the International Woman Suffrage Alliance in 1904, which was later named International Alliance of Women. She "led an army of voteless women in 1919 to pressure Congress to pass the constitutional amendment giving them the right to vote and convinced state legislatures to ratify it in 1920". She "was one of the best-known women in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century and was on all lists of famous American women." Early life Carrie Clinton Lane was born on January 9, 1859, in Ripon, Wisconsin, the daughter of Maria Louisa (née Clinton) and Lucius Lane. When Catt was seven years old, her family moved to rural Charles City, Iowa. As a child, Catt was interested in science and wanted to become a doctor. After graduating from high school in 1877, she enrolled at Iowa Agricultural College (now Iowa State University) in Ames, Iowa. Catt's father was initially reluctant to allow her to attend college, but he relented, contributing only a part of the costs. To pay her expenses, Catt worked as a dishwasher, in the school library, and as a teacher at rural schools during school breaks. Her freshman class consisted of 27 students, six of whom were female. Catt joined the Crescent Literary Society, a student organization aimed at advancing student learning skills and self-confidence. Although only men were allowed to speak extemporaneously in meetings, Catt demanded to be allowed to do the same thing. This started a discussion about women's participation in the group and ultimately led to women gaining the right to speak in meetings. Catt was also a member of Pi Beta Phi, started an all girls' debate club, and advocated for women's participation in military drills. After four years at Iowa State, Catt graduated on November 10, 1880, with a Bachelor of Science degree, the only female in her graduating class. Iowa State did not name valedictorians during Catt's time there, so there is no way to know her class rank. She worked as a law clerk after graduating, then she became a teacher and then superintendent of schools in Mason City, Iowa, in 1885. She was the first female superintendent of the district. In February 1885, Catt married newspaper editor Leo Chapman. She remained with her parents on the family farm in Iowa when her husband traveled to California to find a job and a place for them to live. Catt left for California after receiving a telegram that her husband was ill with typhoid fever. While she was en route, Catt learned that her husband died in August 1886. She remained for a while in San Francisco, where she wrote freelance articles and canvassed for newspaper ads, but she returned to Iowa in 1887. She was a young widow of 28- and 29-years old when she wrote "Zenobia" (1887) and "The American Sovereign" (1888). In 1890, she married George Catt, a wealthy engineer and alumnus of Iowa State University. Catt continued to lecture and wrote "Subject and Sovereign" in 1893 and "Danger to Our Government" in 1894. George Catt also encouraged her involvement in women's suffrage. Their marriage allowed her to spend a good part of each year on the road campaigning for suffrage, a cause she had become involved with during the late 1880s. Role in women's suffrage National American Woman Suffrage Association Early years In 1887, Catt returned to Charles City, where she had grown up, and became involved in the Iowa Woman Suffrage Association. From 1890-92, Catt served as the Iowa association's state organizer and group's recording secretary. During her time in office, Catt began working nationally for the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), and was a speaker at its 1890 convention in Washington, D.C. In 1892, Susan B. Anthony asked Catt to address Congress on the proposed woman's suffrage amendment. After working her first suffrage campaign in South Dakota in 1890, which went down in defeat, Catt was asked to coordinate the suffrage campaign in Colorado. She arrived in Denver in early September 1893 and worked until Election Day. Catt traveled more than a thousand miles throughout the Rockies during the next two months and visited 29 of Colorado's 63 counties. Colorado passed women's suffrage in November 1893, becoming the second state to give women the right to vote and the first where suffrage was won by popular vote. By the 1895 national convention of the NAWSA, Catt was proposing major changes in the structure of the organization. "The great need of the hour is organization. Suffrage is today the strongest reform there is in this country, but it is represented by the weakest organization", the Woman's Journal reported."Catt organized and then headed a new Organization Committee with a budget of $5,000 and power so extensive that it became the center of women suffrage in the United States." The 1896 NAWSA Convention was notable for its debate about Elizabeth Cady Stanton's book, The Woman's Bible, in which Stanton challenged traditional religious beliefs that women are inferior to men and should be passive. Many NAWSA members feared that the book would damage the suffrage movement by alienating its more orthodox members. Catt and Anthony, NAWSA's president at the time, met with Stanton prior to its publication to voice their concerns, but Stanton was unmoved. Catt and another future NAWSA president, Anna Howard Shaw, supported a resolution stating that "NAWSA has no official connection with the so-called Woman's Bible." During the 1898 national convention of the NAWSA, one of the most outstanding speakers was African American activist Mary Church Terrell. She and Catt first became acquainted at that time and formed a life-long friendship. First presidency, 1900–1904 In 1900, Catt became president of the NAWSA as Susan B. Anthony's handpicked successor. Anthony knew Catt had the skills to carry the movement forward and her election to the presidency was nearly unanimous. She served her first term as NAWSA president until 1904, when she stepped down to care for her ailing husband, George Catt, who died in 1905. In her first year as NAWSA president, she led a delegation to the 1900 Republican Party national convention where the suffragists were allowed 10 minutes to speak. The Democrats refused to hear them at all. That year in Oregon, a second campaign for woman suffrage failed. During the winter of 1902–1903, Catt worked the New Hampshire amendment campaign in the midst of bitter cold, but lost by a vote of 14,162 to 21,788. In 1902, Catt called for an international meeting of women that would coincide with the annual conven.... Discover the Helen Catt Michael Murphy popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Helen Catt Michael Murphy books.