National American Woman Suffrage Association
Encyclopedia
The National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) was an American
women's rights organization formed in May 1890 as a unification of the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) and the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). The NAWSA continued the work of both associations by becoming the parent organization of hundreds of smaller local and state groups, and by helping to pass woman suffrage
legislation at the state and local level. The NAWSA was the largest and most important suffrage organization in the United States, and was the primary promoter of women's right to vote. Like AWSA and NWSA before it, the NAWSA pushed for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing women's voting rights, and was instrumental in winning the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
in 1920.
Susan B. Anthony
was the dominant figure in NAWSA from 1890 to 1900, at which time she stepped down in favor of Carrie Chapman Catt
. Catt was president of NAWSA from 1900 to 1904 and again from 1915 onward. Anna Howard Shaw
was president of NAWSA from 1904 to 1915. After success in 1920, the NAWSA was reformed as the League of Women Voters
, which continues the legacy.
and Susan B. Anthony proposed a new suffrage organization, the American Equal Rights Association
(AERA), to push for equal rights for both African American
s and women, and especially to work for universal suffrage
, the right to vote given to all people. In 1869, tensions formed regarding the proposed Fifteenth Amendment
which would give black men the right to vote. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
, Anthony and an outspoken few were unwilling to yield to the political situation which appeared to Stone and a majority of other activists to favor passage of the amendment for black men's voting rights but not passage of women's voting rights. Stone was willing to work for passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, the success of which was to be followed directly by a renewed effort on behalf of women. By May 1869, the split between Stone's political realist group and the Stanton-Anthony group came to a head. Anthony and Stanton worked behind Stone's back to create the splinter group NWSA, formed to put pressure on the federal government to adopt a woman suffrage amendment, but which also pushed for a wider scope of women's rights, including easier divorce laws.
In reaction, Stone formed the AWSA in November 1869 with Julia Ward Howe
, Josephine Ruffin
, and Henry Browne Blackwell, Stone's husband. A more moderate organization that attracted a majority of suffragists, the AWSA worked primarily at passing legislation at the state and local level, with a secondary effort focused at influencing federal elections and winning the opinion of federal legislators. The AWSA fostered local suffrage groups with financial grants and by helping draft proposed laws.
The NWSA tended to take a more radical position than the AWSA. It established itself as an organization that would only allow female members, and it passed a resolution opposing the Fifteenth Amendment
, angering many Negro
activists and white abolitionists. Later, the NWSA associated itself with George Francis Train
who actively opposed any expansion of rights for African-Americans.
The AWSA attracted more moderate members, and was less militant than the NWSA. The AWSA did not campaign on other issues besides votes for women. In 1870, the AWSA founded the Woman's Journal
, a magazine edited by Lucy Stone and her daughter, Alice Stone Blackwell
.
The NWSA contained a tension of its own. Susan B. Anthony
wished to focus exclusively upon women's suffrage. Stanton and other radical suffragists pushed for a broader scope, to address the many concerns of women.
The NWSA addressed many issues at the state and local level, but particularly worked to put proposed legislation in front of Congress
. The AWSA worked primarily at the state and local level, but applied some pressure at the federal level.
joined in Boston to discuss a merger. Stone insisted that, in the spirit of good will and as a demonstration of neutrality between the previously antagonistic organizations, none of the three principals, Stone, Stanton or Anthony, would seek to serve as president. Anthony acceded to this condition. After the meeting, Stone wrote to Antoinette Brown Blackwell, longtime friend to both Stone and Anthony, that Anthony "so much wished to be President herself! To bring her to the top at last would be such a vindication, she cannot bear to forego it."
Stone and Anthony selected prominent women's rights activists to form the two committees: representing the NWSA would be May Wright Sewall
, Rachel Foster, Clara Colby, Olympia Brown
, Laura Johns and Harriet Shattuck; the AWSA group was to be Alice Stone Blackwell, William Dudley Foulke
, Julia Ward Howe
, Hannah Tracy Cutler
, Mary Thomas, Margaret Campbell, and Anna Howard Shaw
. Over the next two years, Alice Stone Blackwell shuttled between the AWSA and NWSA conventions to carry proposals and counter proposals between the two committees. Negotiations were necessarily drawn out over many months because each association was required to approve the merger at its annual meeting. In early 1888, Rachel Foster, the leader of the NWSA committee, helped Anthony and Stanton organize a 40-year celebration of the Seneca Falls Convention
, with delegates invited from a number of countries. The arrival of women from around the globe gave Foster the opportunity to form the International Council of Women
. That fall, she married to become Rachel Foster Avery
.
In 1889, Anthony began campaigning for Stanton to become president of the merged group, though she had previously agreed otherwise. Anthony wrote to each woman in the NWSA membership to "be on hand at our next annual Washington convention to stand firm as a rock for perfect freedom in the union and for Mrs. Stanton as President of it." Stanton, however, was not pleased with the direction of the merger—she resisted the elimination of other issues in favor of the concentration of energy solely upon suffrage. Of Stone and Anthony, Stanton wrote: "Lucy and Susan alike see suffrage only. They do not see woman's religious and social bondage."
Finally, in February, 1890 the newly-unified National American Woman Suffrage Association held its first convention in Washington, D.C., combining the AWSA and NWSA memberships. Stone, 72 years old, was too weak with heart problems and respiratory illness to attend its first convention, but was unanimously elected chair of the executive committee. After Anthony asked the assembled delegates not to "vote for any human being but Mrs. Stanton", Stanton was elected president, and Anthony vice president. Both women understood that Stanton's presidency would be largely honorary; Stanton sailed for a two-year tour of England shortly after being elected. The role of acting president settled upon Anthony's shoulders.
Matilda Joslyn Gage
, Olympia Brown
and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were each alienated by the merger; together, their interests were too radical for the new NAWSA. Stanton turned toward work on The Woman's Bible
with Gage, Brown and a Revising Committee of two dozen other women. With Stanton, the committee wished to correct the historical bias that men had introduced into the Bible
. This effort led to conflict with the NAWSA; in 1896, Rachel Foster Avery and a slim majority of younger NAWSA members voted to distance the organization from The Woman's Bible and from Stanton. The NAWSA membership wished to focus on one single issue: the drive to gain for women the right to vote.
in Chicago. Lucy Stone and Susan B. Anthony spoke during the week-long event which attracted 150,000 attendees.
At the NAWSA convention in 1900, Maud Wood Park discovered that, at the age of 29, she was the youngest delegate present. Park determined to attract a younger group of women to the organization and, in concert with Inez Haynes Gillmore
, formed the College Equal Suffrage League.
and her allies, NAWSA by 1916 had enough strength in the states for the final push toward a constitutional amendment. It set up a high-powered publicity bureau and a Washington office, the "front door lobby," to exert immediate, face-to-face pressure on Congressmen.
While NAWSA's overall strategy moved relentlessly toward its goal, some activists grew impatient. Alice Paul
joined the NAWSA in 1912 but found it to be insufficiently militant. Paul led a splinter group that eventually became the National Woman's Party
(NWP). With its radical tactics, the NWP gained headlines while NAWSA was negotiating with Congressmen who had the votes.
Democratic machine in New York decided not to oppose the measure, and it passed by a slim majority.
During the involvement of the United States in World War I
, many women's rights activists, led by the NAWSA, decided to table the measures that they had been promoting. This prudent move was appreciated by male legislators who saw in it another reason why women deserved the right to vote.
In special sessions conducted during May and June, 1919, the Nineteenth Amendment
passed both the House
and the Senate
. The proposed amendment was sent to the states for ratification. The approval of 36 states was required for the constitution to be changed, and Tennessee became the 36th to do so on August 18. On August 26, 1920, the amendment was certified for adoption by the United States Secretary of State
.
From 1920 to 1921, the NAWSA reformed into the League of Women Voters
, with Maud Wood Park as president.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
women's rights organization formed in May 1890 as a unification of the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) and the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). The NAWSA continued the work of both associations by becoming the parent organization of hundreds of smaller local and state groups, and by helping to pass woman suffrage
Women's suffrage
Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...
legislation at the state and local level. The NAWSA was the largest and most important suffrage organization in the United States, and was the primary promoter of women's right to vote. Like AWSA and NWSA before it, the NAWSA pushed for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing women's voting rights, and was instrumental in winning the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits any United States citizen to be denied the right to vote based on sex. It was ratified on August 18, 1920....
in 1920.
Susan B. Anthony
Susan B. Anthony
Susan Brownell Anthony was a prominent American civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century women's rights movement to introduce women's suffrage into the United States. She was co-founder of the first Women's Temperance Movement with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as President...
was the dominant figure in NAWSA from 1890 to 1900, at which time she stepped down in favor of Carrie Chapman Catt
Carrie Chapman Catt
Carrie Chapman Catt was a 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 was president of NAWSA from 1900 to 1904 and again from 1915 onward. Anna Howard Shaw
Anna Howard Shaw
Anna Howard Shaw was a leader of the women's suffrage movement in the United States. She was also a physician and the first ordained female Methodist minister in the United States. Her birthday is celebrated as Anna Howard Shaw Day, as an alternative to St. Valentine's Day.-Early Life:Shaw was...
was president of NAWSA from 1904 to 1915. After success in 1920, the NAWSA was reformed as the League of Women Voters
League of Women Voters
The League of Women Voters is an American political organization founded in 1920 by Carrie Chapman Catt during the last meeting of the National American Woman Suffrage Association approximately six months before the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution gave women the right to vote...
, which continues the legacy.
Background conflict
In 1866, Lucy StoneLucy Stone
Lucy Stone was a prominent American abolitionist and suffragist, and a vocal advocate and organizer promoting rights for women. In 1847, Stone was the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree. She spoke out for women's rights and against slavery at a time when women were discouraged...
and Susan B. Anthony proposed a new suffrage organization, the American Equal Rights Association
American Equal Rights Association
The American Equal Rights Association , also known as the Equal Rights Association, was an organization formed by women's rights and black rights activists in 1866 in the United States. Its goal was to join the cause of gender equality with that of racial equality...
(AERA), to push for equal rights for both African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
s and women, and especially to work for universal suffrage
Universal suffrage
Universal suffrage consists of the extension of the right to vote to adult citizens as a whole, though it may also mean extending said right to minors and non-citizens...
, the right to vote given to all people. In 1869, tensions formed regarding the proposed Fifteenth Amendment
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits each government in the United States from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude"...
which would give black men the right to vote. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an American social activist, abolitionist, and leading figure of the early woman's movement...
, Anthony and an outspoken few were unwilling to yield to the political situation which appeared to Stone and a majority of other activists to favor passage of the amendment for black men's voting rights but not passage of women's voting rights. Stone was willing to work for passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, the success of which was to be followed directly by a renewed effort on behalf of women. By May 1869, the split between Stone's political realist group and the Stanton-Anthony group came to a head. Anthony and Stanton worked behind Stone's back to create the splinter group NWSA, formed to put pressure on the federal government to adopt a woman suffrage amendment, but which also pushed for a wider scope of women's rights, including easier divorce laws.
In reaction, Stone formed the AWSA in November 1869 with Julia Ward Howe
Julia Ward Howe
Julia Ward Howe was a prominent American abolitionist, social activist, and poet, most famous as the author of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic".-Biography:...
, Josephine Ruffin
Josephine Ruffin
Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin was an American publisher, journalist, African American civil rights leader, suffragist, and editor for Women’s Era, the first newspaper published by and for African American women...
, and Henry Browne Blackwell, Stone's husband. A more moderate organization that attracted a majority of suffragists, the AWSA worked primarily at passing legislation at the state and local level, with a secondary effort focused at influencing federal elections and winning the opinion of federal legislators. The AWSA fostered local suffrage groups with financial grants and by helping draft proposed laws.
The NWSA tended to take a more radical position than the AWSA. It established itself as an organization that would only allow female members, and it passed a resolution opposing the Fifteenth Amendment
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits each government in the United States from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude"...
, angering many Negro
Negro
The word Negro is used in the English-speaking world to refer to a person of black ancestry or appearance, whether of African descent or not...
activists and white abolitionists. Later, the NWSA associated itself with George Francis Train
George Francis Train
George Francis Train was an entrepreneurial businessman who organized the clipper ship line that sailed around Cape Horn to San Francisco; he organized the Union Pacific Railroad and the Credit Mobilier in the United States, and a horse tramway company in England while there during the American...
who actively opposed any expansion of rights for African-Americans.
The AWSA attracted more moderate members, and was less militant than the NWSA. The AWSA did not campaign on other issues besides votes for women. In 1870, the AWSA founded the Woman's Journal
Woman's Journal
Woman's Journal was a women's rights periodical published from 1870-1931.Woman's Journal was founded in 1870 in Boston, Massachusetts by Lucy Stone and her husband Henry Browne Blackwell as a weekly newspaper. The new paper incorporated Mary A...
, a magazine edited by Lucy Stone and her daughter, Alice Stone Blackwell
Alice Stone Blackwell
Alice Stone Blackwell was an American feminist, journalist and human rights advocate.-Biography:The daughter of Henry Brown Blackwell and Lucy Stone, she was born in East Orange, New Jersey....
.
The NWSA contained a tension of its own. Susan B. Anthony
Susan B. Anthony
Susan Brownell Anthony was a prominent American civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century women's rights movement to introduce women's suffrage into the United States. She was co-founder of the first Women's Temperance Movement with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as President...
wished to focus exclusively upon women's suffrage. Stanton and other radical suffragists pushed for a broader scope, to address the many concerns of women.
The NWSA addressed many issues at the state and local level, but particularly worked to put proposed legislation in front of Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
. The AWSA worked primarily at the state and local level, but applied some pressure at the federal level.
Merger
In October 1887, at the annual AWSA convention, Stone proposed the formation of a committee to meet with a similar committee of NWSA delegates to discuss union. Stone stated that the differences between the two organizations "have since been largely removed by the adoption of common principles and methods." Anthony agreed to the meeting, and on December 21, 1887 a foursome consisting of Stone, Anthony, Alice Stone Blackwell and Rachel FosterRachel Foster Avery
Rachel Foster Avery was a corresponding secretary of the National American Woman Suffrage Association during the late 19th century.-Biography:...
joined in Boston to discuss a merger. Stone insisted that, in the spirit of good will and as a demonstration of neutrality between the previously antagonistic organizations, none of the three principals, Stone, Stanton or Anthony, would seek to serve as president. Anthony acceded to this condition. After the meeting, Stone wrote to Antoinette Brown Blackwell, longtime friend to both Stone and Anthony, that Anthony "so much wished to be President herself! To bring her to the top at last would be such a vindication, she cannot bear to forego it."
Stone and Anthony selected prominent women's rights activists to form the two committees: representing the NWSA would be May Wright Sewall
May Wright Sewall
May Wright Sewall was an American feminist, educator, and lecturer. She was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the United States. In 1866, she earned a bachelor's degree, and in 1868 she earned a master's degree, both from North Western Female College. In 1872, Sewall married Edwin W. Thompson and...
, Rachel Foster, Clara Colby, Olympia Brown
Olympia Brown
Olympia Brown was an American suffragist. She is regarded as the first woman to graduate from a theological school, as well as becoming the first full time ordained minister...
, Laura Johns and Harriet Shattuck; the AWSA group was to be Alice Stone Blackwell, William Dudley Foulke
William Dudley Foulke
William Dudley Foulke was an American literary critic, journalist, poet and reformer.-Biography:He was born in New York City and graduated Columbia Law School in 1871...
, Julia Ward Howe
Julia Ward Howe
Julia Ward Howe was a prominent American abolitionist, social activist, and poet, most famous as the author of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic".-Biography:...
, Hannah Tracy Cutler
Hannah Tracy Cutler
Hannah Maria Conant Tracy Cutler was an abolitionist as well as a leader of the temperance and women's suffrage movements in the United States. Cutler served as president of the Ohio Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association...
, Mary Thomas, Margaret Campbell, and Anna Howard Shaw
Anna Howard Shaw
Anna Howard Shaw was a leader of the women's suffrage movement in the United States. She was also a physician and the first ordained female Methodist minister in the United States. Her birthday is celebrated as Anna Howard Shaw Day, as an alternative to St. Valentine's Day.-Early Life:Shaw was...
. Over the next two years, Alice Stone Blackwell shuttled between the AWSA and NWSA conventions to carry proposals and counter proposals between the two committees. Negotiations were necessarily drawn out over many months because each association was required to approve the merger at its annual meeting. In early 1888, Rachel Foster, the leader of the NWSA committee, helped Anthony and Stanton organize a 40-year celebration of the Seneca Falls Convention
Seneca Falls Convention
The Seneca Falls Convention was an early and influential women's rights convention held in Seneca Falls, New York, July 19–20, 1848. It was organized by local New York women upon the occasion of a visit by Boston-based Lucretia Mott, a Quaker famous for her speaking ability, a skill rarely...
, with delegates invited from a number of countries. The arrival of women from around the globe gave Foster the opportunity to form the International Council of Women
International Council of Women
The International Council of Women was the first women's organization to work across national boundaries for the common cause of advocating human rights for women. In March and April 1888, women leaders came together in Washington D.C...
. That fall, she married to become Rachel Foster Avery
Rachel Foster Avery
Rachel Foster Avery was a corresponding secretary of the National American Woman Suffrage Association during the late 19th century.-Biography:...
.
In 1889, Anthony began campaigning for Stanton to become president of the merged group, though she had previously agreed otherwise. Anthony wrote to each woman in the NWSA membership to "be on hand at our next annual Washington convention to stand firm as a rock for perfect freedom in the union and for Mrs. Stanton as President of it." Stanton, however, was not pleased with the direction of the merger—she resisted the elimination of other issues in favor of the concentration of energy solely upon suffrage. Of Stone and Anthony, Stanton wrote: "Lucy and Susan alike see suffrage only. They do not see woman's religious and social bondage."
Finally, in February, 1890 the newly-unified National American Woman Suffrage Association held its first convention in Washington, D.C., combining the AWSA and NWSA memberships. Stone, 72 years old, was too weak with heart problems and respiratory illness to attend its first convention, but was unanimously elected chair of the executive committee. After Anthony asked the assembled delegates not to "vote for any human being but Mrs. Stanton", Stanton was elected president, and Anthony vice president. Both women understood that Stanton's presidency would be largely honorary; Stanton sailed for a two-year tour of England shortly after being elected. The role of acting president settled upon Anthony's shoulders.
Matilda Joslyn Gage
Matilda Joslyn Gage
Matilda Electa Joslyn Gage was a suffragist, a Native American activist, an abolitionist, a freethinker, and a prolific author, who was "born with a hatred of oppression".-Early activities:...
, Olympia Brown
Olympia Brown
Olympia Brown was an American suffragist. She is regarded as the first woman to graduate from a theological school, as well as becoming the first full time ordained minister...
and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were each alienated by the merger; together, their interests were too radical for the new NAWSA. Stanton turned toward work on The Woman's Bible
The Woman's Bible
The Woman's Bible is a two-part book, written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and a committee of 26 women, and published in 1895 and 1898 to challenge the traditional position of religious orthodoxy that woman should be subservient to man. By producing the book, Stanton wished to promote a radical...
with Gage, Brown and a Revising Committee of two dozen other women. With Stanton, the committee wished to correct the historical bias that men had introduced into the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
. This effort led to conflict with the NAWSA; in 1896, Rachel Foster Avery and a slim majority of younger NAWSA members voted to distance the organization from The Woman's Bible and from Stanton. The NAWSA membership wished to focus on one single issue: the drive to gain for women the right to vote.
Gaining the vote
In May 1893, the NAWSA sent some lecturers to the World's Congress of Representative WomenWorld's Congress of Representative Women
The World's Congress of Representative Women was a week-long convention for the voicing of women's concerns, held within the World's Columbian Exposition in May 1893...
in Chicago. Lucy Stone and Susan B. Anthony spoke during the week-long event which attracted 150,000 attendees.
At the NAWSA convention in 1900, Maud Wood Park discovered that, at the age of 29, she was the youngest delegate present. Park determined to attract a younger group of women to the organization and, in concert with Inez Haynes Gillmore
Inez Haynes Irwin
Inez Haynes Irwin was an American feminist author, journalist, member of the National Women's Party, and president of the Authors Guild. Many of her works were published under her former name Inez Haynes Gillmore. She wrote over 40 books and was active in the suffragist movement in the early 1900s...
, formed the College Equal Suffrage League.
Pressure group action
NASWA restructured itself and became a major pressure group. It recruited celebrities, both men and women, who could draw attention to the cause. It raised money from mebers and wealthy donors, using the funds to train and send paid and volunteer organizers into the field to canvass for votes and enlist new members. It specialized in parades and street rallies, with its white uniforms and banners designed to draw crowds as well as newspaper reporters. It built alliances with local women's clubs, as well as state and national groups, and even some labor unions. Operating under the tight control of Carrie Chapman CattCarrie Chapman Catt
Carrie Chapman Catt was a 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...
and her allies, NAWSA by 1916 had enough strength in the states for the final push toward a constitutional amendment. It set up a high-powered publicity bureau and a Washington office, the "front door lobby," to exert immediate, face-to-face pressure on Congressmen.
While NAWSA's overall strategy moved relentlessly toward its goal, some activists grew impatient. Alice Paul
Alice Paul
Alice Stokes Paul was an American suffragist and activist. Along with Lucy Burns and others, she led a successful campaign for women's suffrage that resulted in the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920.-Activism: Alice Paul received her undergraduate education from...
joined the NAWSA in 1912 but found it to be insufficiently militant. Paul led a splinter group that eventually became the National Woman's Party
National Woman's Party
The National Woman's Party , was a women's organization founded by Alice Paul in 1915 that fought for women's rights during the early 20th century in the United States, particularly for the right to vote on the same terms as men...
(NWP). With its radical tactics, the NWP gained headlines while NAWSA was negotiating with Congressmen who had the votes.
1916-20
In 1916 at the NAWSA annual convention, President Woodrow Wilson unveiled his plan to gain suffrage. It required the coordination of all suffrage workers across the country, in state and local groups. In 1917, women in New York state won the right to vote, after a petition drive amassed more than a million signatures. At the eleventh hour, the powerful Tammany HallTammany Hall
Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society...
Democratic machine in New York decided not to oppose the measure, and it passed by a slim majority.
During the involvement of the United States in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, many women's rights activists, led by the NAWSA, decided to table the measures that they had been promoting. This prudent move was appreciated by male legislators who saw in it another reason why women deserved the right to vote.
In special sessions conducted during May and June, 1919, the Nineteenth Amendment
Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits any United States citizen to be denied the right to vote based on sex. It was ratified on August 18, 1920....
passed both the House
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
and the Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
. The proposed amendment was sent to the states for ratification. The approval of 36 states was required for the constitution to be changed, and Tennessee became the 36th to do so on August 18. On August 26, 1920, the amendment was certified for adoption by the United States Secretary of State
United States Secretary of State
The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...
.
From 1920 to 1921, the NAWSA reformed into the League of Women Voters
League of Women Voters
The League of Women Voters is an American political organization founded in 1920 by Carrie Chapman Catt during the last meeting of the National American Woman Suffrage Association approximately six months before the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution gave women the right to vote...
, with Maud Wood Park as president.
Presidents of the NAWSA
- Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) 1890-1892
- Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) 1892-1900
- Carrie Chapman Catt (1859-1947) 1900-1904
- Anna Howard Shaw (1847-1919) 1904-1915
- Carrie Chapman Catt (1859-1947) 1915-1920