Carrie Lane Chapman Catt, suffragist, early feminist, political activist, and Iowa State alumna (1880), was born on January 9, 1859 in Ripon, Wisconsin to Maria Clinton and Lucius Lane. At the close of the Civil War, the Lanes moved to a farm near Charles City, Iowa where they remained throughout their lives. Carrie entered Iowa State College in 1877 completing her work in three years. She graduated at the top of her class and while in Ames established military drills for women, became the first woman student to give an oration before a debating society, earned extra money as assistant to the librarian, and was a member of Pi Beta Phi. After graduation she became the high school principal in Mason City and then in 1883 the superintendent of Mason City Schools. In this capacity she met Leo Chapman, editor of the Mason City Republican, and they married in February 1885. After her husband’s death in 1886, she spent some time in California as a newspaper reporter and then returned to Iowa to begin her crusade for women’s suffrage. She was president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association from 1900-1904 and from 1915 until its goal was reached. She also formed and was president of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance for many years. When the women’s vote was attained in 1920 Mrs. Catt looked ahead and encouraged the formation of a non-partisan group, the League of Women Voters, a group still viable today. Early in her suffrage work she ran into a classmate from Ames, George W. Catt. They were married in 1890. Until his death in October 1905, he supported his wife’s work through his engineering company financially and through his personal support of suffrage. Carrie attained much recognition for her work throughout her life and received many awards such as the Chi Omega in 1941, the Pictorial Review Award for her international disarmament work in 1931, and induction into the Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame. She donated her entire estate to her alma mater, where she was the first woman to deliver the commencement address. She died in March 1947 at her home in New Rochelle, New York.
Resources for Further Research
Secondary Resources in the Iowa State University Library
General Collection, Parks Library
African American women and the vote, 1837-1965. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997. General Collection, Parks Library JK1924 .A47 1997
Fowler, Robert Booth. Carrie Chapman Catt: feminist politician (1986) General Collection, Parks Library HQ1413. c3 F69
Frost-Knappman, Elizabeth. Women’s suffrage in America: an eyewitness history. New York: Facts on File, 1992. General Collection, Parks Library, On Order
Graham, Sara Hunter. Woman suffrage and the new democracy. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996. General Collection, Parks Library JK1896 .G693 1996
Green, Barbara. Spectacular confessions: autobiography, performative activism, and the sites of suffrage, 1905-1938. General Collection, Parks Library PR808.W65 G74 1997
Holton, Sandra Stanley. Suffrage days: stories from the women’s suffrage movement. New York: Routledge, 1996. General Collection, Parks Library JN979 .H67 1996
Kraditor, Aileen. The ideas of the woman suffrage movement, 1890-1920. New York: Columbia University Press, 1965. General Collection, Parks Library JK1896 .K855i
On to victory: propaganda plays of the woman suffrage movement. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1987. General Collection, Parks Library PS627 .S74 O5 1987
Peck, Mary Gray. Carrie Chapman Catt: a biography General Collection, Parks Library HQ1413 .c294p
Politics and friendship: letters from the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, 1902-1942. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1990. General Collection, Parks Library JN5947 .L5413 1990
Porter, Kirk Harold. A history of suffrage in the United States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1918. General Collection, Parks Library JK1846 .P834h
Sherr, Lynn. Failure is impossible: Susan B. Anthony is her own words. New York: Time Books, 1995. General Collection, Parks Library HQ1413.A55 S48 1995
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady. The selected papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1997. General Collection, Parks Library HQ1410 .A25 1997
Terborg-Penn, Rosalyn. African American women in the struggle for the vote, 1850-1920. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998. General Collection, Parks Library JK1896 .T47 1998
Van Voris, Jacqueline. Carrie Chapman Catt: a public life. New York: Feminist Press, 1996. General Collection, Parks Library HQ1413 .c3 V25 1996
Weatherford, Doris. A history of the American suffragist movement. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 1998. General Collection, Parks Library, On Order
Wheeler, Marjorie Spruill. New women of the new South: the leaders of the woman suffrage movement in the southern states. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. General Collection, Parks Library JK1896 .W48 1993
Woman suffrage and politics; the inner story of the suffrage movement, with Nettie Rogers Schuler. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1923. General Collection, Parks Library JK1896 C294w
The woman voter’s manual by S.E. Forman and Marjorie Schuler, with an introduction by Carrie Chapman Catt. New York: Century Company, 1918. General Collection, Parks Library JK271 F765w
Media Center, Parks Library
The ballot and the bullet. Compiled by Carrie Chapman Catt. New York: National American Woman Suffrage Association, 1897. Microforms Center, Parks Library HQ1121 H57x, Microfilm Reel 519, no. 3954
Catt, Carrie Chapman. Carrie Chapman Catt. Filmed from holdings in the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College. Microforms Center, Parks Library HQ1121 H57x, Microfilm Reel 950, no. 9197
Catt, Carrie Chapman. Do you know? New York: National American Woman Suffrage Association, 1914. Microforms Center, Parks Library HQ1121 H57x, Microfilm Reel 949, no. 9102
Catt, Carrie Chapman. Feminism and suffrage. New York: National American Women Suffrage Association, 1914? Microforms Center, Parks Library HQ1121 H57x, Microfilm Reel 950, no. 9198
Catt, Carrie Chapman. How to work for suffrage in an election district or voting precinct. New York: National Woman Suffrage Association, 1917. Microforms Center, Parks Library HQ1121 H57x, Microfilm Reel 950, no. 9154
Catt, Carrie Chapman. Mrs. Catt’s international address, Congress in Amsterdam, June, 15, 1908. Warren, Ohio: National American Woman Suffrage Association, 1912. Microforms Center, Parks Library HQ1121 H57x, Microfilm Reel 949, no. 9051
Catt, Carrie Chapman. The nation calls. New York: National Woman Suffrage Association, 1919. Microforms Center, Parks Library HQ1121 H57x, Microfilm Reel 950, no. 9176
Catt, Carrie Chapman. Our real enemy. New York: National Woman Suffrage Association, 1918? Microforms Center, Parks Library HQ1121 H57x, Microfilm Reel 950, no. 9166
Hull, Hannah Clothier. Papers, 1889-1958. (American suffragist) Microforms Center, Parks Library JX1962 H84
National American Woman Suffrage Association Records, 1850-1960 Microforms Center, Parks Library JK1881 N38x
The papers of Carrie Chapman Catt (Library of Congress). Microforms Center, Parks Library HQ1413.C3 A3
Political parties and women voters: address delivered by Carrie Chapman Catt to the Congress of the League of Women Voters, Chicago February 14, 1920. Microforms Center, Parks Library HQ1121 H57x Microfilm Reel 950, no. 9181
President’s annual address delivered by Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt: before the 34th annual convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and the First International Woman Suffrage Conference, held in Washington, D.C., February 12-18, 1902. Microforms Center, Parks Library HQ1121 H57x Microfilm Reel 947, no. 8930
President’s annual address delivered by Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt: before the 36th annual convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association held in Washington D.C., February 11-17, 1904. Microforms Center, Parks Library HQ1121 H57x Microfilm Reel 947, no. 8934
A true story by Carrie Lane Chapman. Boston: The Woman’s Journal, 1891. Microforms Center, Parks Library HQ1121 H57x Microfilm Reel 947, no. 8877
War aims. New York: National Woman Suffrage Publishing Company, 1917. Microforms Center, Parks Library HQ1121 H57x Microfilm Reel 950, no. 9155
Woman suffrage by federal constitutional amendment, compiled by Carrie Chapman Catt. New York: National Woman Suffrage Publishing Company, 1917. Microforms Center, Parks Library HQ1121 H57x Microfilm Reel 884, no. 7280
Woman’s century calendar, edited by Carrie Chapman Catt. New York: National American Woman Suffrage Association, 1899. Microforms Center, Parks Library HQ1121 H57x Microfilm Reel 519, no. 3955
Women’s studies manuscript collections from the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College. Series I, Woman’s suffrage. Microforms Center, Parks Library JK1896 W66x
The world movement for woman suffrage, 1904-1911: being the presidential address delivered at Stockholm to the sixth convention of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, on Tuesday, June 13, 1911, by Mrs. Chapman Catt. Microforms Center, Parks Library HQ1121 H57x, Microfilm Reel 954, no. 9498
Special Collections Department, Parks Library
An address to the Congress of the United States. New York: National Woman Suffrage Association, 1917 Special Collections, Parks Library JK1901 c29a
Benjamin, Anne Myra Goodman. A history of the anti-suffrage movement in the United States from 1895 to 1920: women against equality. Lewiston : Edwin Mellen Press, 1991. Special Collections, Parks Library JK1896 B46
Fowler, Robert Booth. Carrie Chapman Catt: feminist politician. Boston : Northeastern University Press, 1986. Special Collections, Parks Library HQ1413. c3 F69
History of woman suffrage. Edited by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage. New York: Fowler & Wells, 1922 Special Collections, Parks Library JK1896 St 26h
Issues in Iowa politics. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1990. Special Collections, Parks Library JK6316 .I87 1990
Law, Cheryl. Suffrage and power: the women’s movement, 1918-1928 . New York: St Martin’s Press, 1997. Special Collections, Parks Library HQ1597 L39x
Peck, Mary Gray. Carrie Chapman Catt: a biography. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1944. Special Collections, Parks Library HQ1413 .c294p
Victory: how women won it. New York: The H. W. Wilson Company, 1940. Special Collections, Parks Library JK1896 N213v
Who can answer? An address at the 44th Congress of American Industry, December 8, 1939. The author’s attempt to answer the question, War, how can we get rid of it? New York: National Association of Manufacturers, 1939 Special Collections, Parks Library JX1953. C294w
Why wars must cease. New York: MacMillan Company, 1935. Special Collections, Parks Library JX1965 .W43
Woman suffrage and politics; the inner story of the suffrage movement, with Nettie Rogers Schuler. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1923. Special Collections, Parks Library JK 1896 C294w
Woman suffrage by federal constitutional amendment, compiled by Carrie Chapman Catt. New York: National Woman Suffrage Publishing Company, 1917. Special Collections, Parks Library JK1901 .C29w
Resources available online
Carrie Chapman Catt Papers
RS 21/7/3
University Archives, Iowa State University Library
Carrie Chapman Catt Primary Sources in the U.S
(Sponsored by the Carrie Chapman Catt Childhood Home: Mason City, Iowa)
Resources for Research on Suffrage on the World Wide Web
American Women’s History: A Research Guide - Suffrage
Anti-Suffrage Movement and Sentiments
Stanton and Anthony Papers Project Online
Suffragists Oral History Project (University of California-Berkeley)
Woman Suffrage and the 19th Amendment
Women’s Studies Manuscript Collections from the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College
Library of Congress-American Memory: “African American Perspectives-Pamphlets from the Daniel A.P. Murray Collection, 1818-1907”
“Selections from the National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection, 1848-1921”
“By Popular Demand: “Votes for Women” Suffrage Pictures, 1850-1920”
This is a historic exhibit and the information provided within it may be out of date. Please contact the Special Collections and University Archives Department with questions about Iowa State history (archives@iastate.edu).