National American Women Suffrage Association
The formation of the NAWSA in 1890 represented a start in the nationwide women's rights movement. The group reunited 2 groups of the suffrage movement that parted in 1869; the more radical NWSA founded by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton in New York of 1869, and the more conservative group American Women Suffrage Association established by Lucy Stone later that year. Stanton was the NAWSA's first president, but in 1892, Anthony assumed the post. The organization was fused with the ideas of a younger generation of feminists who attended college and had careers.
The old tension between the two groups did not end easily, as the NAWSA's leadership battled over whether to campaign for women's suffrage on the national or state level. By the mid 1890s, the group was waging campaigns on both fronts, by convoking outside Washington, D.C. every other year and campaigning for state suffrage in individual states. Anthony hoped to broaden the organization's appeal, particulary to southern women, and decided to restrict the organization to women's rights, not including a stance on civil rights for African Americans. Her decisions outraged many of her African American reform minded colleagues and coworkers, as well as discrepancing her personal tendency, but she was determined to gain support for the suffrage movement by all means. She distanced herself from the first man to support women publicly, Frederick Douglass. When organizers from the NAWSA went to Atlanta, Anthony confessed, "I myself asked Mr. Douglass not to come... I did not want anything to get in the way of bringing the Southern white women into our suffrage association."
In 1900, Anthony resigned from the presidency of the organization and was succeeded by Carrie Chapman Catt, who guided NAWSA in a strategy to win the women's suffrage. A young reformer named Alice Paul joined the organization in 1912 and pushed Catt for a national amendment. Through the NAWSA's and other women's suffrage organization's efforts, the 19th amendment was ratified in 1920, securing the rights for women throughout the country. After the ratification, the dispassionate NAWSA became the League of Women Voters.
The old tension between the two groups did not end easily, as the NAWSA's leadership battled over whether to campaign for women's suffrage on the national or state level. By the mid 1890s, the group was waging campaigns on both fronts, by convoking outside Washington, D.C. every other year and campaigning for state suffrage in individual states. Anthony hoped to broaden the organization's appeal, particulary to southern women, and decided to restrict the organization to women's rights, not including a stance on civil rights for African Americans. Her decisions outraged many of her African American reform minded colleagues and coworkers, as well as discrepancing her personal tendency, but she was determined to gain support for the suffrage movement by all means. She distanced herself from the first man to support women publicly, Frederick Douglass. When organizers from the NAWSA went to Atlanta, Anthony confessed, "I myself asked Mr. Douglass not to come... I did not want anything to get in the way of bringing the Southern white women into our suffrage association."
In 1900, Anthony resigned from the presidency of the organization and was succeeded by Carrie Chapman Catt, who guided NAWSA in a strategy to win the women's suffrage. A young reformer named Alice Paul joined the organization in 1912 and pushed Catt for a national amendment. Through the NAWSA's and other women's suffrage organization's efforts, the 19th amendment was ratified in 1920, securing the rights for women throughout the country. After the ratification, the dispassionate NAWSA became the League of Women Voters.