On Election Day in 1872, 13-year-old Carrie Chapman Catt noticed that her father and some of the male hired help were getting ready to go into town to vote. She asked her mother why she wasn’t getting ready, too. Carrie was appalled by her mother’s explanation. Women couldn’t vote!
Ms. Catt never forgot this conversation. As leader of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, she played a key role in securing the passage of the 19th Amendment, granting American women the right to vote. Ms. Catt founded the League of Women Voters in 1920 to promote voter education and to ensure that these newly eligible voters were prepared to cast their ballots.
Ms. Catt died in her childhood home in New Rochelle, New York at 88 years old from heart failure. The Carrie Chapman Catt House was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2006 and is open for visitors. You can learn more about Ms. Catt’s life at the
website of the National Women’s History Museum.
It’s important to note that discriminatory state voting laws continued to prevent many minorities from voting until the Voting Rights Act was signed into law in 1965. Unfortunately, those rights are in danger again. Several states have recently passed voter restriction laws, including limits to early voting, mail-in ballots, and requiring voters to show photo IDs. The voting system already contained strong protection against fraud, and election officials work hard to maintain transparency about the process.