The Early Life of a Suffragist | Carrie Chapman Catt

Carrie Chapman Catt would tell you that she became a suffragist at 13 on the day her father went to vote in the 1872 election without her mother. Born in Ripon, Wisconsin in 1809 and raised in Charles City, Iowa, Catt graduated from Iowa State University with a degree in general science. She later became the first woman to hold the position of superintendent for Mason City Schools. She would become one of the national leaders in the women’s suffrage movement of the late 1800s.

Carrie Chapman Catt devoted most of her life to the expansion of women’s rights nationwide and around the world, and is recognized as one of the key leaders of the American women’s suffrage movement. Her political strategies and organizational skills contributed to the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution on August 18, 1920. 

This segment is from Iowa PBS’s documentary Carrie Chapman Catt: Warrior for Women which tells the compelling story of the Iowa suffragist and her role in the women’s suffrage movement.