Carrie Chapman Catt

Hello! My name is Carrie Chapman Catt. I was born on a chilly day, January 9th, 1859, in Wisconsin, but I spent most of my childhood growing up on a farm in Iowa. When I was just 13 years old, something happened that I would never forget. It was the year 1872, and a big election was happening in our country. I watched my father get ready to go vote, and I turned to my mother and asked if she was going, too. She just shook her head and quietly said, 'No, women are not allowed to vote.' I was so surprised and felt a knot of unfairness in my stomach. That single moment planted a question in my mind that would shape the rest of my life: why shouldn't women have the same rights as men?

I loved learning more than anything, and I was determined to go to college. Back then, it was very unusual for a young woman to want a higher education. I worked many different jobs to save up money and pay my own way. In 1880, I proudly graduated from Iowa Agricultural College, but I was the only woman in my entire graduating class! After college, I became a teacher, and in 1883, I became a school superintendent. I was one of the very first women in the country to hold such an important job. In that role, I learned how to organize people and how to speak in front of a crowd. I knew I wanted to use my new voice to help change that unfair rule I had learned about as a girl.

In 1887, I finally found my path when I joined a group of brave women who were working for 'suffrage.' That's a formal word that means the right to vote. I even got to meet the famous leader of the movement, Susan B. Anthony, and we became good friends and partners in the cause. My work took me all over the country. I gave hundreds of speeches, trying to encourage people to support the right for women to vote. It was very hard work, and many people did not think women should be involved in politics at all. But I truly believed that for our country to be fair, every person’s voice needed to be heard. In 1900, when Susan B. Anthony retired, I was chosen to become the next president of our group, the National American Woman Suffrage Association.

I knew that just wanting something to change wasn't enough; we needed a smart strategy to make it happen. So, I developed what I called the 'Winning Plan.' The plan had two parts working at the same time. We would work to get individual states to change their voting laws, while also pushing the United States government to add an amendment to the Constitution. An amendment is a special, powerful change to the most important law of the land. My work wasn't just in America. In 1904, I traveled around the world and started the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, because I believed that women everywhere deserved the right to vote. We organized parades, wrote letters, and promised each other we would never give up.

After so many years of hard work by thousands of women across the country, we finally reached our goal. On August 18th, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was officially passed. At last, women in America had the right to vote! It was one of the very happiest and most proud days of my entire life. But I knew our work was not over. In that same year, 1920, I started a new group called the League of Women Voters. The job of this group was to help women learn about the issues and the people running for office so they could be smart, responsible voters. Winning the right to vote was the first big step, but using that right wisely was the next.

I lived a long and full life, and I was able to see the world change in ways I had only dreamed of as a young girl on that farm in Iowa. I lived to be 88 years old. Today, I am remembered as one of the many women who fought to make our country a fairer and more equal place. Every time a woman goes to a polling place and casts her vote, she is using the right that we all worked so hard to win. I hope my story reminds you that if you see something in the world that is not fair, you have the power to organize, to speak up, and to create change.