INDEX A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Sesquicentennial celebration

History of Iowa State: Alumni

Sponsored by the University Archives, Iowa State University Library

Copyright 2006

 

Carrie Chapman Catt

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
 

Microforms 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

 


George W. Catt