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Carrie Chapman Catt: A Public Life
Now in Paperback!
315 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 1987
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 5, 2025
It's borderline criminal that this, the most recent full-length Catt biography, was published in 1987. If I were a historian or writer, I'd do one. Appreciated learning more about Catt's storied public career - she was a towering and thoughtful organizer. She doesn't get as much credit as the "radical" suffragists, but was just as key to ultimate victory.
I wish more detail had been given to the critical suffrage years of 1915-1920, but it was truly astounding to learn of her prolific career outside of that. Uniquely for her time, she traveled widely and I appreciated learning how that shaped her activism and gave her an international perspective.
Wasn't a huge fan of the writing here, so: 3 stars for writing, 5 stars for an amazing life, averages out to 4 stars.
Some good quotes:
"I have a voice like a foghorn and can be heard in out of door meetings" (letter to Colorado suffragists, where they won the vote in the first successful statewide referendum, with just a handful of suffrage activists, including Catt)
Catt described defeat as "victory deferred"
Maud Wood Park: "Mrs. Catt was essentially a statesman; Miss Hay, a politician, and together they were, in most cases, invincible."
After defeat of NY state suffrage referendum in 1915, Anna Shaw asked "How long will it delay your fight, Carrie?" She responded, "Only until we can get a little sleep. Our campaign will be on again tomorrow morning--and forever until we get the vote."
"Male and female created He them, says Genesis, and gave them dominion over the earth. Alas! The males took all the dominion to themselves, and we stand for getting back our half of it. We stand too, for the principle of self-government, and for votes for men and women on equal terms."
"Agitation for a cause is excellent; education is better; but organization is the only assurance of final triumph of any cause in a self governing nation."
"Build friendships, not warships" (Utopian motto adopted by Catt's post-suffrage Committee on the Cause and Cure of War)
I wish more detail had been given to the critical suffrage years of 1915-1920, but it was truly astounding to learn of her prolific career outside of that. Uniquely for her time, she traveled widely and I appreciated learning how that shaped her activism and gave her an international perspective.
Wasn't a huge fan of the writing here, so: 3 stars for writing, 5 stars for an amazing life, averages out to 4 stars.
Some good quotes:
"I have a voice like a foghorn and can be heard in out of door meetings" (letter to Colorado suffragists, where they won the vote in the first successful statewide referendum, with just a handful of suffrage activists, including Catt)
Catt described defeat as "victory deferred"
Maud Wood Park: "Mrs. Catt was essentially a statesman; Miss Hay, a politician, and together they were, in most cases, invincible."
After defeat of NY state suffrage referendum in 1915, Anna Shaw asked "How long will it delay your fight, Carrie?" She responded, "Only until we can get a little sleep. Our campaign will be on again tomorrow morning--and forever until we get the vote."
"Male and female created He them, says Genesis, and gave them dominion over the earth. Alas! The males took all the dominion to themselves, and we stand for getting back our half of it. We stand too, for the principle of self-government, and for votes for men and women on equal terms."
"Agitation for a cause is excellent; education is better; but organization is the only assurance of final triumph of any cause in a self governing nation."
"Build friendships, not warships" (Utopian motto adopted by Catt's post-suffrage Committee on the Cause and Cure of War)
December 17, 2013
The woman could organize! If ever opportunity met destiny , it is in the story of Carrie Chapman Catt, heir apparent to Susan B. Anthony in leadership of the American women's suffrage movement in the opening days of the 20th Century. This biography is primarily an exploration of how she set about leading the charge that ultimately created a huge army of voteless women (and a few committed men) to convince enfranchised men to give them the vote. In the process she also led the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, organized several international peace conferences, and launched the League of Women Voters in the wake of the passage of the 19th Amendment to encourage newly enfranchised women to vote intelligently.
Born in 1859 in Rippon, WI and growing up in Charles City, Iowa, Catt, twice widowed, was first elected to head the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) in 1900. The NAWSA, which grew out of the famous Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848, had been long on inspiration, but relatively short on actually organizing women to create a significant force to push for suffrage nationwide. It had tended to be top down and East Coast centered. When local branches in other places wanted to organize, national leadership would send its representatives to run things, wanting to insure that the local branches stayed true to national goals. They seemed to believe that the battle for suffrage would be fought at the federal level or not at all. Perhaps because she, unlike most of the earliest leaders of the movement, was not from the Northeast, Catt began restructuring the organization, bottom to top - trusting that local women knew the unique challenges and possibilities they faced best and so could best organize themselves to meet the challenge. National conventions could serve to inspire and educate, but Catt knew instinctively that working to win the right of women to vote would take place ward by ward, district by district, state by state until whatever powers prevailed in Washington could no longer dismiss or trivialize it. At the same time, she helped create and headed the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, pushing to organize women in countries around the world, again each uniquely positioned to address the particular circumstances of its own country and yet all bound together by international conventions for encouragement and inspiration. And, at the same time, she began pushing for the establishment of an international peace movement to end war, a cause she felt women in general could understand better than men and therefore were uniquely posed to understand.
Interestingly to me, Catt was a consensus builder in movements which could and easily did fragment over tactics (loud confrontation versus well mannered gentle persuasion, for example) and additional issues (shouldn't we also push for temperance or ending white slavery or equal pay for equal work?). From her perspective, factions were the greatest enemy of success in movements for social change, sapping energy from leadership and causing followers to lose heart, and she went to great lengths to get people to work together, even when they couldn't stand one another (or her!) She was a pragmatist in causes that often attracted idealists and purists. For her, keeping her eye on the prize of suffrage often meant other values had to be put on hold (the cause of peace in times of war, for example). She was, from all accounts, a fiery orator, with a cutting wit, and special gifts for making the people in the trenches of the movement feel valued. To a very large extent, the movement was her life. All other relationships, even those with each of her husbands and her long time companion Mary Garrett Hay, took backseat. To say she worked tirelessly is an understatement. Frankly, reading about everything she did wore me out! Well into her seventies, she traveled thousands of miles all over the world every year and wrote hundreds of letters to support and encourage others. She often spoke to audiences four or five times a day and recruited and organized unimaginable numbers of people to the causes she held dear.
At a world conference on the Cause and Cure of War In 1937, with the Japanese occupying Manchuria and Fascists in Germany and Italy threatening to take over Europe, she contended, as she had consistently since she's first been involved in organizing the peace movement during World War I, that peace was a choice and that eventually humankind would opt for it. "A reformer always knows that (he) is going to win, but never does know whether it is in (his) day or that of somebody else. No matter what happens, (he) is completely satisfied that victory will one day crown (his) labors." Her life was a powerful and inspiring testimony to that belief.
Born in 1859 in Rippon, WI and growing up in Charles City, Iowa, Catt, twice widowed, was first elected to head the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) in 1900. The NAWSA, which grew out of the famous Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848, had been long on inspiration, but relatively short on actually organizing women to create a significant force to push for suffrage nationwide. It had tended to be top down and East Coast centered. When local branches in other places wanted to organize, national leadership would send its representatives to run things, wanting to insure that the local branches stayed true to national goals. They seemed to believe that the battle for suffrage would be fought at the federal level or not at all. Perhaps because she, unlike most of the earliest leaders of the movement, was not from the Northeast, Catt began restructuring the organization, bottom to top - trusting that local women knew the unique challenges and possibilities they faced best and so could best organize themselves to meet the challenge. National conventions could serve to inspire and educate, but Catt knew instinctively that working to win the right of women to vote would take place ward by ward, district by district, state by state until whatever powers prevailed in Washington could no longer dismiss or trivialize it. At the same time, she helped create and headed the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, pushing to organize women in countries around the world, again each uniquely positioned to address the particular circumstances of its own country and yet all bound together by international conventions for encouragement and inspiration. And, at the same time, she began pushing for the establishment of an international peace movement to end war, a cause she felt women in general could understand better than men and therefore were uniquely posed to understand.
Interestingly to me, Catt was a consensus builder in movements which could and easily did fragment over tactics (loud confrontation versus well mannered gentle persuasion, for example) and additional issues (shouldn't we also push for temperance or ending white slavery or equal pay for equal work?). From her perspective, factions were the greatest enemy of success in movements for social change, sapping energy from leadership and causing followers to lose heart, and she went to great lengths to get people to work together, even when they couldn't stand one another (or her!) She was a pragmatist in causes that often attracted idealists and purists. For her, keeping her eye on the prize of suffrage often meant other values had to be put on hold (the cause of peace in times of war, for example). She was, from all accounts, a fiery orator, with a cutting wit, and special gifts for making the people in the trenches of the movement feel valued. To a very large extent, the movement was her life. All other relationships, even those with each of her husbands and her long time companion Mary Garrett Hay, took backseat. To say she worked tirelessly is an understatement. Frankly, reading about everything she did wore me out! Well into her seventies, she traveled thousands of miles all over the world every year and wrote hundreds of letters to support and encourage others. She often spoke to audiences four or five times a day and recruited and organized unimaginable numbers of people to the causes she held dear.
At a world conference on the Cause and Cure of War In 1937, with the Japanese occupying Manchuria and Fascists in Germany and Italy threatening to take over Europe, she contended, as she had consistently since she's first been involved in organizing the peace movement during World War I, that peace was a choice and that eventually humankind would opt for it. "A reformer always knows that (he) is going to win, but never does know whether it is in (his) day or that of somebody else. No matter what happens, (he) is completely satisfied that victory will one day crown (his) labors." Her life was a powerful and inspiring testimony to that belief.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews