Catt's Fight For Women's Rights Began On Campus

Carrie Chapman Catt, who graduated from Iowa State in 1880, 
went on to become a driving force behind the passage of the 
constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote. 

She began her fight for women's equality on the ISU campus. 
She persuaded the head of military science to let women 
drill, and because of her efforts, women were allowed for the 
first time to give orations and debate in literary clubs and 
other campus societies.

She completed her college education in three years, earning a 
B.S. in science and humanities. The only woman in her class 
of 14, she was named valedictorian.

She worked for a lawyer in Charles City and then became 
principal of the high school in Mason City. There, she 
married Leo Chapman, a newspaper editor who died of typhoid 
soon after. Following his death, she became the state 
organizer for the Iowa Woman Suffrage Association.

In 1890, she married former Iowa State classmate George W. 
Catt and they moved to Boston. The same year, she gave her 
first national speech at the National American Woman Suffrage 
Association and her career was firmly launched.

In 1892, she set up her first large suffrage conference in 
Des Moines, impressing one of the giants of the suffrage 
movement, Susan B. Anthony. Catt was appointed the 
association's finance chair and in 1895, chair of the 
organization committee. She set up suffrage networks in 10 
states. In 1900, she succeeded Anthony as president of the 
National American Woman Suffrage Association. She also was 
president of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance.

In 1904, she resigned her national post due to her husband's 
illness. When her husband died the following year, Catt again 
threw herself into the suffrage movement, inaugurating a 
series of biennial world conferences. She began the Woman 
Suffrage party in New York and traveled extensively 
throughout Europe and Asia. 

In 1915, she again became president of the national suffrage 
association. For the next five years, she worked tirelessly 
for congressional passage and then state ratification of the 
19th Amendment, which would grant women the right to vote. 
The 36th state ratified the amendment, making it the law of 
the land, in August 1920.

Catt then turned her attention to international matters. She 
rallied women in support of the League of Nations, founded a 
Committee on the Cause and Cure of War and the League of 
Women Voters and supported the formation of the United 
Nations. Until her death in 1947, Catt continued working for 
world peace.

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contact:  Linda Charles, University Relations, (515) 294-3129
updated:  9-28-95