The 1872 presidential election was held on Tuesday, November 5. Incumbent Ulysses S. Grant was facing Democratic-endorsed Liberal Republican nominee Horace Greeley. On the farm of Lucas and Maria Lane located several miles due south of Charles City Lucas and the hired hands were preparing to go into town to vote. 

Carrie Lane was thirteen and noticed that her mother was not in her “town clothes.” She was distressed and asked, “Mother are you not going into town to vote.” At that instance Carrie was informed of the unbelievable news that women couldn’t vote. It was also the exact moment she became a suffragist with a vow to one day help change that obvious injustice. No other individual contributed more to winning that objective than Carrie Lane Chapman Catt. 

After graduation from Iowa Agricultural College in 1880 Carrie was the human equivalent of a meteor. In Mason City she went from college grad to principal to superintendent in under two years.  

At the time there were dedicated women like Mary J. Coggeshall and Martha C. Callanan in Iowa working for suffrage, but no Mason City club. When the Iowa legislature proposed a bill to allow women to vote in municipal elections Carrie recruited local women of influence to petition the law makers. She created a canvassing map with assigned neighborhoods and accompanied the volunteers on initial efforts as they developed their message. All but ten citizens signed. Such an organization and results did not go unnoticed in Des Moines.  

That campaign led to an invitation to the Iowa Women’s Suffrage Association conference in Cedar Rapids that featured Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell. Carrie did not pass up on the opportunity to sit by the renowned Ms. Stone and gain every ounce of knowledge she could absorb. On returning to Boston Ms. Stone shared with her colleagues that this young woman would be heard from by all someday. 

By 1890 she was both attending and addressing the national meeting of the then two national suffrage associations in Washington D.C. In August she was at Susan B. Anthony’s side in South Dakota speaking at every available venue. Her abilities would take her from the back of a wagon or grange hall in small rural communities to the floor of the U.S. Congress. The first of thousands made for women’s rights both in America and around the world. Carrie was soon a recognized spokeswoman for women’s rights. She was only 31! 

In 1893 Carrie had taken her speaking and organization ability to Colorado.Other states had granted women the vote with an executive order which could be overturned; Colorado was considering a more permanent legislative approach.   

In this effort Carrie traveled a thousand miles around the state of Colorado speaking in 29 counties. Twenty-six voted in the affirmative. This victory included African American women, who in turn were instrumental in electing an African American male to the state legislature. 

In 1900 her outstanding achievements, organizational ability and oratory that was both reasoned and passionate was on display for all in the National American Woman Suffrage Association. And thus, she became the obvious and nearly unanimous choice to become the next President of that organization.  

As the new president, Catt brought new energy and changes but never wavered from the original wording of the proposed amendment, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex.” She assured concerned officers of the NAACP that the wording would remain as originally introduced and it did. 

However, the passage of the 19th Amendment and the establishment of the League of Women Voters in 1920 do not tell the complete story. There are few issues and few notable individuals of the 20^th Century she did not interact with. Woodrow Wilson sought her help with the League of Nations. Eleanor Roosevelt, having been converted to a suffragist earlier by Carrie, sought her help as she initiated her speaking career. Andrew Carnegie asked for assistance as he launched his international peace initiatives. She wrote editorials for the NAACP publication The Crisis, in 1933 Carrie won the American Hebrew Medal for her efforts to warn America of the actions of Adolf Hitler and lobbied for expanded immigration allowance for German Jews (Albert Einstein sent a congratulatory note). In Rome Carrie listened to Mussolini welcome her and the International Woman’s Suffrage Association in 1923 by letting the delegates know that Italian women were beloved by Italian males and thus did not need any more legislative rights. Carrie in her response let Signor Mussolini just how wrong he was. In South Africa Carrie met with Mahatma Gandhi. In England she met members of Parliament; in Norway, King (Haakon VII) in Denmark, Queen Louise. In Turkey they issued a stamp in her honor. By all accounts Carrie was as well received in China, South Africa, South America, the Philippines, and other foreign lands as she was by the membership of the National American Women’s Suffrage Association.  On June 14 of 1926 Carrie was on the cover of Time Magazine. (Lou Henry Hoover of Waterloo and Carrie were amongst the first ten women to grace the cover of that publication.)

-Tim Lane