Carrie Chapman Catt: Warrior for Women - Notebook Vol. 2020-2
by Karen K. Smith, BMSHS Executive Director
With the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing women the right to vote very soon upon us, it is our privilege to be able to bring to your attention one of the most prominent of the Suffragists, Carrie Chapman Catt, who was living in Briarcliff Manor at the time of the ratification, August 18, 1920. Here was a woman who made history!
Carrie was born in Wisconsin, but when she was a small girl, she and her family moved to Iowa and settled on a farm. Her interest in the suffragist movement dated to her teen years when she realized her mother lacked the same voting right as her father had. What’s more, when she completed high school at sixteen, her father assumed that was enough schooling for a girl. Uh….NO!
Carrie did four years’ work in three at Iowa State University and began the purely masculine study of law in a lawyer’s office. After a year, Mason City asked her to become the principal of the high school and later to be its superintendent. Carrie was moving fast.
In 1890 she married Leo Chapman, a newspaper editor. However his unexpected early death left her to make her own way. It is said she decided with her remarkable mind and determination to devote her life to making business and professional conditions more tolerable for women. And so she did.
Iowa Public Broadcasting Service came to us last year seeking our help to obtain permission to photograph the home Carrie owned here in Briarcliff Manor from 1919 to 1928, one of the most important decades in her life. We were very happy to help with the project. Catt had named the house “Juniper Ledge” as a nod to the many juniper trees that were on the 13-acre property (at the time) bordered by North State and Ryder Road. Just as an aside, she favored the temperance movement as well and humorously said that she felt she was holding back many juniper berries from her trees that otherwise would have gone into gin production!
Carmino Ravosa, beloved former BMSHS Board member; his wife, Claire; his daughter & son-in-law, Carine and Arnie Feist; and two grandsons, Nathan and Michael Feist, did the painstaking work of preparing an application to have the property listed on the National Register of Historic Places. And so it was that it was designated.
But no one film can tell everything, and, unfortunately, the “Juniper Ledge” scenes fell to the cutting room floor. So we’ll let our Iowa PBS friends tell the rest of the story, and we thank them wholeheartedly for their excellent project – but telling our part was irresistible.
The Iowa PBS team traveled widely to create the vivid history we give you here with the link to their film.
Please click this button for immediate access to the Iowa PBS film
Also attached are three items of interest:
Time Line on Getting the 19th Amendment Ratified
NYTimes 6-26-1921 – “Mrs. Catt Receives Women Picknickers”
NYTimes 3-10-1947 – “Mourned by Truman: President Recalls Mrs. Catt’s Suffrage Fight in Message”
Time Line: Getting the 19th Amendment
Submitted to the Department of the Interior
The 19th Amendment in 1920 was achieved 72 years after the Seneca Falls Convention started it all in 1843.
The 19th Amendment in 1920 was achieved 132 years after the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1788.
The 19th Amendment was achieved 50 years after Black men got the vote with the 15th Amendment.
The 19th Amendment in 1920 was achieved 18 years after Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) died. She worked for suffrage for 54 years. She and Lucretia Mott started it all with the first Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, NY. in 1848.
The 19th Amendment (Called the Susan B. Anthony Amendment) was accomplished 14 years after Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) died. She worked for the vote for 57 years.
Lucretia Mott (1793-1880) worked for 32 years for the vote. It was accomplished 40 years after her death.
Carrie Chapman Catt (1859-1947) started to work for suffrage in Iowa in 1887, joined the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSAA) later and in 1890 she was elected to succeed Susan B. Anthony as president. The 19th Amendment was finally achieved in large part to her leadership and her “winning plan” in 1920. She worked for suffrage and its final victory for 33 years.
MRS. CATT RECEIVES WOMEN PICKNICKERS
Originally published June 26, 1921
Copyright the New York Times
Tells 100 Voters She Bought Juniper Ledge to Keep Juniper Berries from “Wet” Use.
Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, first as a farmer, wearing a blue Summer gown and sun hat, and later as Doctor of Laws, in cap and gown, received at her farm, Juniper Ledge, Briarcliff, yesterday members of the League of Women Voters from the five boroughs of New York, who had her a picnic visit to welcome her home from the West. She had returned with the degree of L.L. D. conferred by the University of Wyoming and her alma mater, Iowa State College.
One hundred members of the league were in picnic (sic) in the party. They arrived in big electric buses, bringing their lunches. Mrs. Catt and Miss Mary Hay, who assists her in running the farm, provided coffee and orangeade. If any of the league members belonged to the anti-dry party and had expected from the name of the farm that the liquid refreshments would be more exhilarating, they were disillusioned by Mrs. Catt immediately. There are many juniper trees on the place, and the juniper berry is used in flavoring gin.
“I know,” said Mrs. Catt, “that the juniper is useful in making liquor, and that is why I bought the place – so that no one else would have opportunity to use the trees for that purpose.”
Mrs. Catt’s cap and gown, an unusually fine set, were presented to her by the Brooklyn women. She regretted that she now would have little opportunity to wear them.
“Dr. Anna Shaw wore hers often,” Mrs. Catt said, “because we were continually having suffrage parades, and she always used them in marching. Now that we have suffrage there are no more parades, so I see no more use for them in that way.”
The women visited fourteen trees on the estate which have been dedicated to famous suffragists. A new one was dedicated to Esther Morris, “whose courage and persistence gave women suffrage for the first time in the world in Wyoming.” Another was dedicated to Maud Wood Park, largely instrumental in having the Federal amendment put through. [The collection is now at Radcliffe College.]
MOURNED BY TRUMAN
New York Times
March 10, 1947
ProQuest Historical Newspapers
President Recalls Mrs. Catt’s Suffrage Fight in Message
The following telegram from President Truman was received at Mrs. Catt’s home yesterday afternoon:
“With the passing of Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt an era in our national life comes to a close. She had been a pioneer for the United States in the long-ago years for woman suffrage, when that cause was unpopular. Persistently and fearlessly she campaigned for the suffrage amendment to the Federal Constitution. Happily, after the victory was won, she lived more than a quarter of a century to see American women take their rightful place on an equal basis with men in the exercise of the ballot. She will be widely and long remembered.”
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.