Funding for this program
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as well as generations of
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programs they
watch on Iowa PBS.
Additional funding for
this program has been
provided by, Philip and
Diana Sickles, Rhoda
McCartney, Susan Moritz
Scharnberg and Connie
Wimer.
The organized woman's movement
dates from
1848 when a convention to
consider the rights of
women was held in Seneca
Falls, New York.
The committee drafting the
list of woman's wrongs
found their grievances
against the government of
men to be the same number
that American men had had
against King George.
It took George Washington
six years to rectify man's
grievances by war, but it
took 72 years to establish
women's rights by law.
♪♪
In the fall of
1920, millions of American
women voted for the
very first time.
They were taking advantage
of what Carrie Chapman
Catt, among countless
others, had worked so hard
to help them gain.
♪♪
It was a momentous
achievement, the
culmination of a battle
that took more than seven
decades.
And for Catt, a cause she
had spent 40 plus years of
her life fighting, the
fight to win women the
vote.
♪♪
It's the story of
America and it's the story
of how we change our laws
and it's a story of how we
make the Constitution
a living document.
This is a very
important story.
It is the enfranchisement
of half of our nation and
it is a story
of democracy.
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
Carrie Clinton
Lane was born January 9,
1859 in Ripon, Wisconsin,
the middle child
with two brothers.
In 1866, at the close of
the Civil War, her family
moved to a farm new
Charles City, Iowa.
Her parents, Lucius and
Maria Lane, saw in their
daughter a toughness and
an independence unlike
most girls of her time and
early on witnessed her
pledge to fight for
women's rights.
Jane Cox: Carrie said that
she became a suffragist at
13 and it was the result
of the fact that her
parents very much wanted
Horace Greeley to be
elected President.
And so Election Day
finally came and Carrie is
a young 13 year old girl,
was very, very, very
excited about that.
She ran into the kitchen
where her mother was
working to tell her she
had to go change her dress
because her father was
about ready to go into
town to vote.
And her father appeared
at the door and both her
father and her mother
laughed about this, that
Carrie would think that
her mother was going into
town to vote too.
And her father replied to
her that voting was men's
business.
Catt would later say, it
was fate, not a career
that took me in charge.
I could never forget that
rank injustice to my
mother.
I verily believe I was
born a suffragist.
Ivadelle Stevenson: My
grandfather, Warren, was
Charles' son who was
Carrie's brother and I was
very proud of her.
I would have liked
very much to meet her.
What made her be so
determined to get people
to vote and why she was so
upset when her father went
to vote and her
mother couldn't.
♪♪
Catt's childhood
outrage marked the
beginning of her decades
long crusade for women's
suffrage.
She would become one of
the towering figures who
would lead the fight for
women's right to vote
against the nation's deep
rooted forces of sexism,
prejudice and
political interests.
Karen Kedrowski: I have
come to appreciate what a
strategic political actor
Carrie Chapman Catt was.
She really understood the
terrain and the realities
that she faced in the
19-teens and the 1920s.
Dianne Bystrom: Carrie
Chapman Catt I think more
than any woman suffragist
actually brought that
suffrage amendment home,
she financed it, she
organized it, she was
singly focused on it.
I think that we, women in
this country need to thank
her for the right to vote.
♪♪
The 19th
Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution granted
American women the right
to vote, a right known
as women's suffrage.
The amendment was signed
into law on August 26th,
1920.
It declared, the right of
citizens of the United
States to vote shall not
be denied or abridged by
the United States or by
any state on account of
sex.
Congress shall have power
to enforce this article by
appropriate legislation.
Elaine Weiss: You have to lay
the groundwork, you have to
change hearts and minds
first, and this is what
the suffragists did in
those decades before they
actually achieved victory,
they changed hearts and
minds.
They had to change not
only the idea of who is a
citizen who can vote, but
what is a woman's role in
society.
♪♪
Carrie Chapman Catt was a potent
politician during one of the
most turbulent periods in the
history of American women.
Deborah Ann
Turner: She understood the
obstacles that the
movement faced.
And so she looked at the
landscape and she did what
is really critical to how
you get things done in our
country, quite frankly.
She looked at individual
states, she looked at what
those state's needs were
and how you could get
things passed in that
state and that in some
ways people say well that
has caused some of the
problems, but by the same
token it got the mission
done.
So she was a very good
strategic thinker.
Catt's political life was
complex and sometimes
controversial, much like
the cause she embodied.
The women's suffrage
movement was
revolutionary,
but also flawed.
Suffragists often
disagreed on the
philosophies of suffrage
reform and racism occurred
within the movement.
Weiss: Does racism raise its
head again and again and
again in the movement
and in society?
Yes.
It is a deeply segregated
society at the end of the
19th and the beginning
of the 20th century.
America is a
divided nation.
And this is, you have to
see that as the backdrop
of the movement.
Martha Jones: Politics
is the business of
compromise, of
alliances, of coalition.
It's a very different
approach to change than
say social movements that
work from the bottom up or
later on strategies
in the courts.
But there is a live
question that runs through
the movement and really is
critical by the time Catt
is at its helm, which is
which compromises and on
what terms.
And Catt, along with many
other American women, have
to navigate that and have
to themselves decide where
the line is.
(men yelling)
Beginning
as early as the American
Revolution, women have
fought for the same
social, political and
economic rights as men.
In the late 1700s and well
through the early 20th
century, women had
little to no rights.
A married woman was
thought to be her
husband's property.
Husbands owned their
wives' belongings, land
and money.
If a couple divorced, the
woman lost all rights to
her children.
Linda Kerber: So, he has
power over her body, he
has power over her
property, it seemed to
follow that you would not
let her vote because he
has got so much power over
her that the married woman
is bound to vote just the
way the husband does.
What's the point of that?
So here are all these guys
who are speaking about
independence and how when
a colony grows up to
adulthood they should be
able to make decisions for
themselves, but in their
own households they can't
see their wives
as independent.
♪♪
In 1848, about
10 years before Carrie
Chapman Catt was born,
the movement for women's
rights launched on a
national scale with the
Seneca Falls Convention
in upstate New York.
Considered to be the
first of its kind, it was
organized by abolitionist
performers Elizabeth Cady
Stanton and Lucretia Mott.
More than 300 people
attended, including around
40 men.
Former African-American
slave and activist
Frederick Douglass
was there.
♪♪
There were always
wonderful male champions
of women's suffrage who
truly believed that this
was unfair.
And so from the very
beginning, whether it's
Frederick Douglass or
other political men or
newspaper editors or just
friends of the movement,
husbands, fathers who
are very supportive.
The delegates of the
Seneca Falls Convention
agreed that American
women were independent
individuals who deserved
their own political
identities.
Janice Ruth: The ideas
that led to Seneca Falls
were in play many years
earlier the revolution in
the United States, the
American Revolution
sparked a lot of
discussion about the roles
of women and the potential
equality for women.
These campaigns for
temperance, abolition,
which all were preceding
the Seneca Falls and led
to that.
Women cut their teeth
on those movements.
Some of the delegates, led
by Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
decided to write the
Declaration of Sentiment,
modeled after the
Declaration of
Independence.
It stated, we hold these
truths to be self-evident,
that all men and women are
created equal, that they
are endowed by their
Creator with certain
inalienable rights, that
among these are life,
liberty and the
pursuit of happiness.
The principles of the
Seneca Falls Convention
were mocked and
criticized in the press.
Male dominance in society
was simply too powerful
for the Declaration
of Sentiments to have
immediate sway.
But, Elizabeth Cady
Stanton and Lucretia Mott
persevered.
The impact of the Seneca
Falls Convention could not
be denied.
Soon, they would join
forces with Susan B.
Anthony, who had dedicated
her life's work to female
suffrage and other
social causes.
The suffrage movement lost
momentum during the Civil
War as men and women
turned their attentions to
the conflict
between the states.
After the war, female
suffrage endured another
setback when the women's
rights movement became
divided over the proposed
15th Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution.
It would give black men
the right to vote, but
failed to extend the same
privilege to American
women of any skin color.
♪♪
Weiss: Susan B.
Anthony and Elizabeth Cady
Stanton and Lucretia Mott,
Lucy Stone, those whole
first generation, the four
mothers as they are
sometimes called of
women's rights in America,
all are abolition workers
before they are
ever suffragists.
And so the idea of women's
rights and women's
suffrage comes out of
the abolition movement.
It actually is a daughter
of the abolition movement
and they become
sort of siblings.
And the same people often
work in both causes.
So these women are truly
committed to freeing the
slaves.
What happens is they
believe, and they are
encouraged in that belief
by their abolitionist
co-workers, that at the
end of the Civil War when
slavery is abolished that
universal suffrage will
reign, that black men,
black women, white women,
all those who have not had
the vote, will get the
vote.
And so they are very
deeply offended and
disappointed and feel
betrayed when in the 14th
and 15th Amendments they
are told no, the nation
can't take two big
reforms at once.
It's a tough pill for the
women to accept and they
don't.
Now, Lucy Stone and Julia
Ward Howe and a whole
other branch of
suffragists say, well wait
a minute, it's not a good
situation, we don't think
that women should be cut
out, but we have to still
support the 14th
and 15th Amendments.
So that is the first
split in the movement.
And so Stanton and
Anthony form the National
Association, Lucy Stone
and Howe, the American
Women's Suffrage
Association, and they
remain apart until 1890,
for a whole generation.
♪♪
As this was going
on at the national scale,
Carrie Chapman Catt was
making her mark in Iowa.
In 1877, she started
her studies at Iowa
Agricultural College, now
Iowa State University, and
completed a bachelor's
degree in general science
in 1880, the only woman
in her graduating class.
After graduation, she
became the high school
teacher and principal
in Mason City, Iowa.
Then, in 1883, at the
age of 24, she became
superintendent of Mason
City Schools, one of the
first women to hold
such a position.
Sue Johannsen: She was a
woman who was ahead of her
time in so many ways.
She was a big thinker, she
thought about people's
rights, her rights.
She was appalled to think
that her mother couldn't
vote like her father did
and I think she made up
her mind that she was
going to change that.
Doris Kelley: You have to
look at someone her age
that was committed to
getting a college degree,
committed to the women's
movement, committed to
getting out and really
doing something.
That is what inspired me.
She was a strong-willed
young lady.
While in Mason City, she
met her first husband Leo
Chapman, publisher and
editor for the Mason City
Republican Newspaper.
They were married in 1884
at her parents' Charles
City farm.
She wrote a column for his
paper called Woman's World
about women's political
and labor issues.
Leo was supportive of his
wife's suffrage cause.
♪♪
Sadly, in 1886,
Leo became ill with
typhoid fever and died.
♪♪
In 1890, Carrie
married her second
husband, a wealthy
engineer named George
Catt.
George also supported his
wife's suffrage work, both
financially and
personally, believing his
role in the marriage was
to earn their living and
hers was to
reform society.
They had no children.
We made a great team to
work for the cause, said
Carrie.
♪♪
During this time,
Catt became active in the
newly formed National
American Woman's Suffrage
Association, or NAWSA.
Susan B.
Anthony, President of the
organization, took Catt
under her wing.
She saw the young woman as
a trailblazer within the
next generation of
feminist leaders.
She learns the ropes from
her, she travels with her
and so she feels this
enormous responsibility to
lead the movement.
One of Catt's first
missions for NAWSA was to
help pass a woman's
suffrage referendum in
Colorado in 1893.
She traveled to the
western state and stayed
there for two months.
♪♪
Beth Behn: Stories
from her time in Colorado
are incredible.
She would go to mining
camps and ride in mining
carts down to talk to the
miners where they were,
rough crowds in a lot of
cases, crowds that were
not particularly
receptive to the message.
But she logged thousands
of miles and hundreds of
hours talking to those
sorts of groups.
And so she earned her
credibility with the
troops, so to speak,
by having been in the
trenches.
Corrine McConnaughy:
Carrie Chapman Catt has
this formative experience
in the movement of being
the on-the-ground
organizer sent by the
national organization to
the state of Colorado.
She has learned already
that you can't understand
political possibilities
in local context without
getting an assessment from
people who are on the
ground there.
She also learns this
really important lesson
about whether coalitions
are a good thing or a bad
thing for suffrage.
And at this point the
national leadership has
kind of decided that
coalitions and associating
women's suffrage with
anything else is a bad
idea and Catt, on the
ground, overrides what she
has been told by Anthony.
And I think it's really
easy to see her learning
this very new, different
model of doing suffrage
politics than the one that
had been propagated by the
early suffrage leadership.
In the end, voters in
Colorado approved women's
suffrage making it the
second state to do so.
Wyoming was the first.
♪♪
In 1900, Susan B.
Anthony retired as NAWSA's
President and chose Catt
as her successor.
The organization looked to
the 41 year old from Iowa
for leadership.
It marked a new era for
the women's suffrage
movement, an age of
restructuring and
reorganization, and
Catt was its profit.
Weiss: She leads, she leads by
force of personality, but
also by her oratory.
She becomes a
great speaker.
And then she couples
that with being an
organizational dynamo.
She proves that to Susan
Anthony very early.
She goes on an early sort
of canvassing trip with
her through the South and
then she comes back and
writes this scathing
analysis of what is wrong
with their organization
and how things could be
managed better.
And so Susan Anthony says,
well okay, you wrote that
report, go do it.
And she does and she
reorganizes the entire
suffrage structure.
And she does this
again and again.
In 1902, Catt expanded her
fight for equality when
she founded the
International Women's
Suffrage Alliance.
But in 1904, she was
forced to take a step back
from her international and
stateside duties to deal
with a personal challenge.
♪♪
Her husband had
become ill and she needed
to care for him full-time.
George Catt died in 1905.
♪♪
While grieving the
devastating loss of her
second husband, Catt was
struck with more tragedy
with the deaths of
her mentors Susan B.
Anthony in 1906 and her
younger brother William
and her mother
Maria both in 1907.
♪♪
Catt was left
grief-stricken and
emotionally drained.
Her doctor and friends
encouraged her to travel
abroad to recuperate.
Yet, even on the mend, she
continued to promote equal
suffrage rights worldwide
for the next 9 years.
♪♪
Cox: When
tragedies happen to her
she had to work.
She said how lucky she
was to have her work.
She could pour her energy
into that and that would
be what would save her.
But the process of picking
yourself up and going on I
think is such an important
one in terms of all of our
lives and was one of
the things that really
interested me
about Carrie.
♪♪
When Catt returned
to the U.S., she and her
colleagues worked
state-by-state to pass
suffrage.
By 1912, most of the
successes were in the
western states, Wyoming,
Colorado, Utah, Idaho,
Washington, California,
Arizona, Kansas and
Oregon, making a total of
9 states granting equal
suffrage.
In 1914, a wealthy
businesswoman, Miriam
Florence Squier Leslie,
unexpectedly left Catt her
entire estate with
instructions that the
money be used to further
the cause of women's
suffrage.
Bystrom: They had met but
they weren't good friends,
she was a wealthy
publisher in New York
City, so she left Carrie
Chapman Catt originally $2
million.
By the time that the
family took her to court
and tried to get part of
the money it was about $1
million when she finally
went through all the
court.
But $1 million back then
is worth about $25 million
today.
So Catt used that money to
send people out all over
the country.
In 1915, suffragists
insisted Catt take the
helm of NAWSA again.
They were worried the
movement was drifting, but
Catt was apprehensive.
Her health was never good
as she struggled with
heart problems and
severe migraines.
Weiss: She did not want to come
back in the presidency,
but they literally lock
her in a room and these
hundreds of women come and
beg her and so finally she
cries, but she says okay.
But she says I'll do that
only if you consider my
new plan, which is
called the winning plan.
And this is a synthesis of
the two approaches that
have been used by
the suffragists.
So it's saying, our goal
is the federal amendment,
but in the meantime we
also are going to work for
certain key states to
pass women's suffrage.
Behn: There was no easy
button anywhere in the
process.
And so keeping strong
organizations at the state
level but also recognizing
that there were some
states that were not going
to hold a referendum or
even if they did it stood
no chance of winning.
And so resources, funds
and energy from those
states would need to
be shuttled into other
states.
And women from those
states who were not going
to get the love from the
national needed to accept
that and realize that they
were part of a broader
winning plan.
That took some finesse and
nuance for her to explain
that to her own followers
and to get them in step
with that program.
♪♪
Having the largest
population and the biggest
U.S.
House delegation all
eyes were on New York.
Catt and her fellow
suffragists felt gaining
the vote in that state
would be a powerful
message.
♪♪
But, in spite
of all the work the
suffragists did in New
York, the vote failed as
it did in Massachusetts,
New Jersey and
Pennsylvania
that same year.
Many were disappointed
and felt defeated.
♪♪
Kedrowski: She
made a point of trying to
learn lessons from every
failed state suffrage
campaign that she engaged
in and some of them were
pretty miserable failures
but she thought, you know,
what can we do differently
next time, instead of
getting discouraged to
think about that as an
opportunity for the next
battle, the next fight,
the next referendum.
♪♪
Weiss: I think if anything I
learned from studying the
suffragists and the whole
movement it's persistence.
It is you keep going, you
get shut down, you get
betrayed, you get
disappointed, you get
defeated.
And Carrie Catt expresses
that very poignantly after
the defeat in
1915 in New York.
She has led this
magnificent campaign, I
think they gave out like
10 million pieces of
literature, they've had
parades of 40,000 women
down 5th Avenue and it's
Election Night and Carrie
can tell they're about to
lose and her workers are
crying.
And Anna Shaw asks her,
how long is this going to
delay suffrage, Carrie?
And she said, only until
the morning, we start
again on the campaign in
the morning for 1917, the
next election cycle.
And they win then.
(cheering)
It was around
the same time that the
women's suffrage movement
would disagree on its
methodology, something
that occurred often within
the organization.
A young suffragist named
Alice Paul was serving as
the Chair of the
Congressional Committee
for NAWSA.
But, out of frustration
with its policies, Paul
left to form the more
militant congressional
union for women's
suffrage in 1914.
A few years later, the
group was renamed the
National Woman's
Party or NWP.
Alice Paul spent time
working with suffragists
in England and
became radicalized.
And she brought two of
those strategies back to
the United States.
The first one was this
notion that suffragists
should hold the party that
was in power responsible
for not passing the
suffrage amendment.
The second thing that
they did was that they
practiced active civil
disobedience, principally
the pickets of
the White House.
♪♪
Carrie Chapman
Catt believed there was a
better strategy in
changing President Woodrow
Wilson's view on
women's suffrage.
In his first term Wilson
hadn't shown much support
for the cause, and if he
did address the issue he
said it was best to leave
the decision up to the
states.
Catt and NAWSA took a much
more accommodationist
stance with the President.
They sought to cultivate
his support over a long
period of time and she
recognized the power of
the presidency, she
recognized what a powerful
force he could be if he
were won over to the
cause.
Alice Paul and the NWP
continued their militant
tactics, even as it looked
like the country was going
to have to enter World War
I, something President
Woodrow Wilson had
long hoped to avoid.
Behn: He's in a conundrum
because he has run on this
platform of keeping the
nation out of the war.
So he's got to make a turn
and he's got to do so
without losing
political support.
Well, hey, one group who
could help him in that are
women, both women voters
and women want-to-be
voters.
Catt sees the same thing.
She recognizes that the
President is likely going
to have to enter the war
and that suffragists are
going to have a
choice to make.
They can get on board
and support the war and
support the war effort on
the home front, they can
use their patriotism as a
way to argue for the right
to vote, or they can
oppose the war and see
what the consequences
of that will be.
And she makes, again, the
politically savvy choice.
♪♪
Personally, the
choice to support the war
was a difficult
one for Catt.
She was a lifelong
pacifist.
Bystrom: She really felt
like getting the vote was
the key to everything.
She just cried and cried
after she was so attacked
for turning her back on
the peace movement, but
she did it even though she
was not for the war, she
did it because she thought
that suffrage isn't going
to win unless we
support this effort.
Behn: She had been a
member of the Women's
Peace Party and was asked
to resign her membership
in the wake of her
decision to pledge NAWSA
in support of the war.
Her contemporaries wrote
to her and offered her
criticism.
And Catt's response in
private correspondence was
pretty shrewd saying, our
nation is going to enter
war, how are we going to
look as an organization if
we oppose that while
saying we want the full
rights of citizenship?
Catt had many causes, but
she had one to which she
was most committed and
that was suffrage.
And so she would privilege
that over those other
causes every time.
♪♪
As Catt had
predicted, President
Wilson did change his
stance on women's voting
rights.
In 1918, the President
addressed the Senate in
favor of suffrage.
He said, I regard the
extension of suffrage to
women as vitally essential
to the successful
prosecution of the great
war of humanity which we
are engaged.
However, despite Wilson's
newfound support, the
amendment failed in
the Senate by 2 votes.
Another year would pass
before Congress took up
the measure again.
Nancy Hill Cobb: To move public
opinion sometimes you really
need to slowly work with people
to change the hearts and
minds and so forth and I
think that is what Carrie
Chapman Catt brought to
this effort and persisted
for over a long
period of time.
♪♪
Linda Meloy: She
was just the epitome of
grit as were many of the
other women that were the
leaders.
Think of those women that
followed Alice Paul and
they went to jail, those
people went through
incredible difficult,
physical and mental
conditions, because of
their stance on women's
rights.
♪♪
On May 21st, 1919,
the measure passed the
U.S. House 304 to 89.
Two weeks later on
June 4th, the U.S.
Senate passed the 19th
Amendment by 56 to 25.
It then was sent to the
states for ratification.
♪♪
Kedrowski:
Amending the Constitution
is not an easy thing.
You need super majorities
of the House and the
Senate and you need super
majorities of the states
to ratify.
So it's a pretty high bar
and it takes a lot of time
and effort.
The founders made it
difficult because they
wanted it to be more or
less a national consensus
for every time that the
Constitution is amended.
By March of the following
year, a total of 35 states
had approved the
amendment, one state shy
of the two-thirds required
for ratification.
However, southern states
were adamantly opposed to
the amendment.
Alabama, Georgia,
Louisiana, Maryland,
Mississippi, South
Carolina and Virginia had
already rejected it.
Suffragists looked to
Tennessee to tip the scale
for women's suffrage.
♪♪
Weiss: So they just need one
more, but all through the
spring there had been
nothing but rejections,
they had hit a wall.
Opposition was getting
much more furious.
Everyone realized that
this was the end game.
And so the
anti-suffragists were
mobilizing in every state
and they were trying to
put a wall between passage
and ratification of the
amendment.
And so it comes down,
through a variety of
factors, that Tennessee
is the last best choice.
♪♪
Carrie Chapman
Catt came to Tennessee
expecting to stay
just a few days.
And she went to the
Hermitage Hotel, which is
a historic hotel in
downtown Nashville right
by the State Capitol, she
ended up staying about six
weeks.
So she was here and she
understood the opposition
to an outsider and she
worked tirelessly to
direct the
pro-suffrage forces.
Catt believed suffrage
was a means to end the
humiliation of women, to
restore their dignity as
human beings equal to men.
Ironically, she and other
women had to persuade male
lawmakers to
support their cause.
Bystrom: They had
no political power.
They couldn't vote.
They weren't
involved in politics.
So the whole campaign
rested on basically
convincing white men to
give them the franchise.
Weiss: The liquor industry, the
railroad industry, the
textile industry and so
they naturally will also
fear it for these economic
reasons, that women will
be bad for business.
Kerber: The men
in American state
legislatures all over
had constituencies.
Those constituencies were
the voting men in their
district.
If they were successful
they had learned how to
appeal to those
voting men.
And what are the
suffragists demanding?
The suffragists are
saying, double your
constituency and we'll put
into it 50% more people
who you don't know, you've
never talked politics
with, you have no idea
what they're thinking and
how they might vote and
whether they'll vote for
you.
There was no way to
predict how they would use
it and the women's
prediction I think was
very frightening
to a lot of people.
♪♪
Surprisingly,
suffrage also was a war
largely of women
against women.
The nation's very own war
of the roses, with the
anti-suffragists wearing
red roses and the
suffragists yellow ones,
both sides decorated
themselves with the
flowers and legislators
often would wear them on
their lapels to show which
side they supported.
♪♪
These are women
who very firmly believe
that the idea of women
voting will be a calamity,
will be a tragedy not only
for the country, it will
as they say signal the
moral collapse of the
nation, but it will also
effect the home, it will
effect personal life.
And that is what made it
so controversial and made
people fear it.
It wasn't just going to be
that women could vote, it
was also a sign that
society was changing its
ideas about the role
of women in society.
In Tennessee, Catt faced
the full force of the
anti-suffragist wrath.
She stated, never in the
history of politics has
there been such
a force for evil.
In the time I've spent in
Tennessee's capital, I
have been more maligned,
more lied about than in
the thirty previous years
I worked for suffrage.
It was not only
contentious because of the
antis versus suffs battle,
but also because in the
South Jim Crow laws
were alive and well.
Catt and her fellow
suffragists were faced
with a dilemma.
How do you win women the
vote in the South when
it's rampant with racism?
Jones: How willing is she
to make herself complicit
with and to make
bedfellows with political
leaders who will in part
respond favorably to the
call for women's suffrage
if that end result
disempowers
African-Americans?
She is faced with that
question head on.
Kedrowski: The argument
that has been attributed
to Catt is actually one
that she echoed that was
developed by Henry
Blackwell, who was both an
ardent abolitionist and an
ardent suffragist, and he
came up with essentially a
statistical argument that
if women's suffrage was
enacted in the South that
in the areas where the
whites were a numerical
majority that they would
continue to be a numerical
majority and that there
would just be more whites
who were able to vote.
Carrie Catt echoed those
arguments in the context
of trying to hold together
a national organization.
The suffrage movement in
the South looked very,
very different than it
did in the rest of the
country.
So it's a very
complicated picture.
But if you read the entire
book where Carrie Catt's
sentence about not
undermining white
supremacy is found, you
see that what she is doing
is trying to equip the
southern suffragists with
some arguments to refute
the arguments that are
prevalent in the South.
So white supremacy is
one, state's rights are
another.
And when she finishes
developing these arguments
she states that really all
of these arguments are
ridiculous and then she
goes back to reaffirm that
suffrage for one must
mean suffrage for all.
Weiss: This idea of putting
blinders on and saying, we
have to get the 19th
Amendment, or we have to
get the state, whatever
state it was, to change
its laws, to allow women
to vote, and we will allow
all women to vote, that is
what the law says, that is
what the amendment
says, all women.
It does not distinguish.
And they hope that black
women will get the vote
too.
But the reality
is it doesn't.
And is Carrie Catt making
these decisions primarily
through the lens of
wanting to make a racist
act?
I don't think so.
I think she is making the
calculation, a purely
political calculation,
what is going to benefit
her cause.
Jones: What a coalition
against Wilson it would
have been if Americans
had come at him with that
double barrel, right, the
end to discrimination
against women and the end
to discrimination against
African-Americans.
And that may not have been
the most practical way
forward, but who would
doubt but that we would be
a very different
nation today.
Behn: I think the real
important takeaway is
understanding our
political process.
And Catt understood that
and recognizing that very
few things, very rarely
does change happen in the
most pure form
that it is sought.
And there is no excusing
that she had the ability
to see differently.
But maybe the bigger
question is why, why this
person who is in general
progressive in all of her
views, why would she be
willing to compromise on
that?
And part of that answer is
the window could close,
the window for securing a
federal amendment could
close.
So there was a sense of
time and urgency and I
think Catt sensed that.
And if we look outside the
boundaries of the United
States you can see women
in Great Britain aren't
enfranchised until 1928
and even then it's only
women over 30.
In France it's
not until 1945.
And these are some of the
most developed countries
in the world.
Their suffragists failed
to get their measures
through in that window
around World War I when
the movement was at its
peak and their window
closed.
♪♪
There was a deep
sense of urgency among
suffragists.
If the Tennessee
legislature ratified the
19th Amendment, women's
suffrage would become the
law of the land.
If the legislature
rejected it, the amendment
might never be enacted.
All women would
have to wait again.
It all came down
to Tennessee.
♪♪
Casey: Nashville
was a hotbed of activity.
People were coming and
going, both pro and
anti-suffrage forces, and
it's hard for people to
understand how significant
it was the role of
newspapers.
They didn't have social
media, they didn't have
telephone service
as we know it.
It was a bustling
center of activity.
On August 18th, 1920,
Tennessee's decision came
down to 24 year old
republican Representative
Harry T.
Burn to cast the
deciding vote.
Burn initially opposed the
amendment in support of
his constituents.
But the day before the
vote, a letter arrived
from his mother,
Phoebe Burn.
She wrote, don't forget
to be a good boy and help
Mrs. Catt with her rats.
Is she the one that put
rat in ratification?
With lots of love, Mama.
When Burn entered the
House floor he was wearing
a red rose, but in the
end voted yes for women.
The 19th Amendment
was fully ratified.
Catt wasn't at the
Statehouse but had her
windows open at the nearby
Hermitage Hotel and heard
the roar of applause.
(cheering)
Casey: The
suspense was so great so
that when it went around
for the motion to keep the
19th Amendment alive and
then for ratification,
Harry Burn voted yea.
The suffragists
got it immediately.
They understood that that
was the crucial vote that
they needed and
pandemonium broke out as
these people
were so excited.
The suffragists were
throwing their yellow
roses into the air, the
anti-suffragists were
hollering.
I don't think people could
grasp how contentious it
was.
The climactic moment in
the suffragist campaign,
Congress approved the 19th
Amendment which provided
for the voting
rights of women.
On August 26th, 1920, the
19th Amendment was signed
into law.
Women finally had achieved
the long sought right to
vote.
For suffragists, it
was a day to rejoice.
Carrie Chapman Catt and
thousands of others filled
the streets of New
York in celebration.
That same year on November
2nd more than 8 million
women voted in the U.S.
elections for
the first time.
♪♪
Behn: And the
right to vote is not the
end all be all, but it's
an important start, and to
have that fundamental
right enshrined in our
Constitution came
about because of their
dedication.
And so I look back today
and I think about the
incredible opportunities
that I've had in my life,
the opportunities that my
daughter will have and
we'd be remiss to not
recognize the connection
to the work of those
who came before.
♪♪
Carrie Chapman
Catt was a savvy political
figure.
Her strategies succeeded
in helping build enough
support to pass
the 19th Amendment.
The fight to win women
the vote was not for the
timid.
Women were ridiculed,
patronized and dismissed
by opponents, yet
they persisted.
Kedrowski: Whenever I
myself go to vote, I think
of the women who were
jailed for protesting
outside the White House.
I think of Susan B.
Anthony who was arrested
and tried in federal court
for the crime of voting.
I think of people like
Carrie Catt who devoted
her life and her personal
fortune to advocating for
those rights.
And I'm profoundly
grateful for it.
While the language of the
19th Amendment guaranteed
the right to vote for
all women, voting didn't
become a reality for
some until later.
Many Native Americans were
barred from voting by
state laws until 1957.
For decades, black women
and in many cases men were
routinely turned away
from the ballot box.
Only in 1965 with the
Voting Rights Act was
disenfranchisement
outlawed.
Turner: We are aware of
things that happened in
this country that were not
right and we have been
working to right them and
we are going to continue
to work.
But you work to correct
that history and to move
beyond it.
The nation of today is
still facing issues it
faced in 1920, voter
suppression in minority
and poor communities,
racial tensions, questions
about immigration and
citizenship and a male
dominated political arena.
Jones: There has never
been a moment in our
history where we haven't
debated and struggled
around and disagreed about
who should vote, under
what circumstances
and by what terms.
Johannsen: The 19th
Amendment was a hard one.
It took many years
and it wasn't easy.
But we're not done and
I don't think we'd have
women's marches, I don't
think we'd be talking
about equal pay for equal
work, I don't think we'd
have the Me Too Movement
if we were finished.
We're not.
Cobb Hill: The women a hundred
years ago were told to be
quiet, and we had that
happen in the Senate in
the last year and a half,
sit down and be quiet,
you're not supposed
to be heard.
And that is, it's
important for young women
to know, it's important
for all of us women to
know, but I think young
women need to know what
women did to make
their lives better.
Kelley: And you look at the
national level, we have
more women serving now
than we've ever had in
history, and even at that
we're only I think at 25%.
Will I live to see women
have equality in this
country?
Will I ever see it?
I don't think I will and
it bothers me an awful
lot.
Weiss: I think Carrie Catt
would be disappointed and
surprised that a woman has
not been elected to the
highest office in the
land, to the presidency,
even 100 years later.
And I think we should
ask ourselves why.
♪♪
Prior to the
passage of the 19th
Amendment, Catt had the
foresight to create the
League of Women
Voters in 1920.
She stated it to help 20
million American women
carry out their new
responsibilities as
voters.
The League is still active
in every state today and
remains a non-partisan
organization.
Meloy: She was a visionary
and she saw what the
problems were not just for
women not being able to
vote, but for other issues
that she worked on that
had to do with poverty,
immigrants, world peace.
Turner: What she didn't
want to see, and what most
suffragists didn't want
to see was that we got an
amendment and then you
stopped and you walked
away.
That was just the
beginning of the work that
needed to be done.
Once you get the vote,
what do you do with the
vote?
How does it work?
What does it mean to
be civically engaged?
What is the power of the
voice of women in this
country?
100 years ago our nation
passed the 19th Amendment,
a celebrated victory for
the women of yesterday.
The women of today, and of
the future, will continue
to fight for equality,
marching on like Carrie
Chapman Catt and thousands
of others before them.
The generation of women
who began it never saw the
end of it, never saw the
right to vote in their
lifetime.
They passed the torch to
the next generation of
women and so on.
The right to vote is
critical to a democracy.
Every citizen 18 and older
should have the right to
vote and we should
encourage it.
It makes us a
stronger country.
And I think that's what
Carrie Chapman Catt
believed.
Catt devoted the rest of
her life to encouraging
women's suffrage in other
nations, as well as
promoting world peace
around the globe.
♪♪
She died of a
heart attack on March 9th,
1947 in her home in New
Rochelle, New York.
♪♪
Stevenson: I
remember that very well.
We got the call on a
Sunday, which we were all
celebrating my birthday at
the time that we got the
call and everybody was
really sad about it
because we thought we had
lost a loyal friend and so
had the world.
Catt was buried alongside
her dear friend, Mary
Garrett Hay, who had
died 20 years earlier.
For nearly four decades,
Hay worked tirelessly
alongside Catt to
win women the vote.
They are buried at
Woodlawn Cemetery in the
Bronx, New York City,
where the headstone reads,
here lie two united in
friendship for 38 years
through constant service
to a great cause.
♪♪
Weiss: As we evaluate Carrie
Catt's leadership, I think
we should bear in
mind a few things.
One is her dedication to
the cause, her fearless,
relentless sacrifice of
her health, much of her
time to this ideal
of what women can be.
On the other hand, she
is often criticized for
making some moral
compromises that can and
should make us
uncomfortable.
But the idea of compromise
is also important.
We think in these days in
much more stark black and
white, good and bad terms,
and it's not that simple.
And I think we have to
look at the circumstances,
at the pressures, at the
goals and say, how do you
work within a political
system, no political
system is pure and
perfect, how do you work
within it to make progress
even if it's not all the
progress you had hoped?
The 19th Amendment
centennial gives us a lot
of opportunities to
learn from it, not just
celebrate it, which I hope
we will because it is an
extraordinary achievement,
but also to study it and
to do more research.
♪♪
At least 1,000
legal enactments were
necessary and every one
was a struggle against
ignorant opposition.
Women's suffrage is a long
story of hard work and
heartache crowned
by victory.
♪♪
Even in
celebration, Carrie
Chapman Catt
was pragmatic.
She sent a memo to the
women of America soon
after the 19th Amendment
was signed into law.
It said, the vote is the
emblem of your equality,
women of America, the
guarantee of your liberty.
That vote of yours has
cost millions of dollars
and the lives of
thousands of women.
Women have suffered agony
of soul which you never
can comprehend, that you
and your daughters might
inherit political freedom.
That vote has been costly.
Prize it.
The vote is a power, a
weapon of offense and
defense, a prayer.
Use it intelligently,
conscientiously,
prayerfully.
♪♪
Progress is
calling to you to make no
pause.
Act.
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
Funding for this
program was provided by
Friends, the Iowa PBS
Foundation, as well as
generations of families
and friends who feel
passionate about the
programs they
watch on Iowa PBS.
Additional funding for
this program has been
provided by Philip and
Diana Sickles, Rhoda
McCartney, Susan Moritz
Scharnberg and Connie
Wimer.
