Name:______________________

Close Read: 19th Amendment

How did the radical and conservative women suffragists’ perspectives clash?

During the women’s suffrage movement in the United States, there were two different avenues through which activists attempted to bring about change - the National Woman’s Party (NWP) and the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association (NAWSA).

Directions: As you watch this clip from the film “Iron Jawed Angels”, please answer the following questions:

1) What was the National Woman’s Party doing to protest the US Government for a Woman’s Suffrage amendment?

2) What does the leader of National American Woman’s Suffrage Association think about the tactics of the NWP - specifically the sentinel in front of the White House? Does she agree or disagree? What does she specifically say about them?

3) Based on this clip, do you think the NWP worked WITH the NAWSA to achieve woman’s suffrage or not? Why or why not?

National American Woman’s Suffrage Association - Background

Formed in 1890, NAWSA was the result of a merger between two rival political factions interested in Women’s Suffrage - National Woman Suffrage Association (led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B Anthony), and the American Woman Suffrage Association (led by Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, and Julia Ward Howe). The NWSA originally favored women’s enfranchisement through a federal constitutional amendment, while the AWSA favored women’s enfranchisement could be more easily obtained through a state-by-state campaign. NAWSA combined both of these techniques under the leadership of Carrie Chapman Catt.

Primary Source Documents - National American Woman’s Suffrage Association

Document A: Statement of Ms. Carrie Chapman Catt at Senate Hearing 1910

“In the 120 years of our national life no class of men have been forced to organize a movement in behalf of their enfranchisement; they have offered no petition or plea or even given sign that the extension of suffrage to them would be acceptable. Yet American women, who have conducted a persistent, intelligent movement for a half-century, which has grown stronger and stronger with the years, appealing for their own enfranchisement and supported now by a petition of 400,000 citizens of the United States are told that it is unnecessary to consider their plea since all women do not want to vote! Is it not likewise unfair to compel women to seek their enfranchisement by methods infinitely more difficult than those by means of which any man in this country has secured his right to a vote? Ordinary fair play should compel every believer in democracy and individual liberty, no matter what are his views on woman suffrage, to grant to women the easiest process of enfranchisement and that is the submission of a Federal Amendment…”

Document B: Youngest parader in New York City NAWSA suffrage parade New York City, May 6 1912

Document C: From - Ms. Catt Assails Picketing (1917)

"The pickets," Mrs. Catt said, "make the psychological mistake of injecting into this stage of the suffrage campaign tactics which are out of accord with it. Every reform, every change of idea in the world passes through three stages—agitation, argument, and surrender. We have passed through the first two stages and entered into the third. The mistake of the pickets is that they have no comprehensive idea of the movement, and are trying to work this first stage in the third. We stand on the threshold of final victory, and the only contribution these women make to it is to confuse the public mind."

Document D: Letter from Carrie Chapman Catt, President of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, to Champ Clark, Speaker of the House, April 10, 1917

Hon Champ Clark,Speaker of the House of Representatives, Washington DC

My dear sir:

On behalf of NAWSA, I write to ask that a Committee on Woman Suffrage be appointed in the House of Representatives as in the Senate of the Congress of the United States. We make this request because the Judiciary Committee, to which constitutional amendments are referred, is always and has been so occupied with other important questions, that it has never been able to give consideration due to this measure supported by so large a portion of our people…

Primary Source Analysis - National American Woman’s Suffrage Association

1) Which organization was formed first - the NWP or NAWSA? _______________________________________________________________________________________________

2) What are THREE tactics the NAWSA used to advocate for women’s suffrage?

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3) Why might NAWSA want Congress to form a Women’s Suffrage committee (document C)? What is the role of a committee in Congress? How might it help their movement? ______________________________________________________________________________________________

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4) Why did NAWSA & Ms. Chapman-Catt disagree with the picketing of the President of the United States by NWP? ______________________________________________________________________________________________

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5) Which group would you describe as more radical? Which group would you describe as more conservative? Use evidence from the documents to support your claims! ______________________________________________________________________________________________

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National Woman’s Party - Background

The origins of the National Woman's Party (NWP) date from December 1912, when Alice Paul (1885-1977) and Lucy Burns (1879-1966) were appointed to the National American

Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA)’s troubled Congressional Committee. Radicalized by their experiences in England–which included violent confrontations with authorities, jail sentences, hunger strikes, and force-feedings–they sought to inject a renewed militancy and energy into the American campaign. They also endeavored to shift NAWSA’s attention away from winning voting rights for women at the state and local levels to securing an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to enfranchise women nationally.

Eventually, conflict between Alice Paul & the President of the NAWSA - Carrie Chapman Catt - led to the formation of the NWP - a group separate from NAWSA that also endeavored to fight for women’s suffrage.

Primary Source Documents - National Woman’s Party

Document 1:

Title: Suffragists demonstrating against Woodrow Wilson in Chicago, 1916

Document 2:

Title: The first picket line in front of the White House 1917 Sign Text: “Mr President how long must women wait for liberty” and “Mr. President what will you do for Woman Suffrage”

Document 3:

Starving for Women’s Suffrage: “I Am Not Strong after These Weeks” - NWP members who had been imprisoned in the Occoquan Workhouse went on a hunger strike to draw international attention to their cause. Prison authorities responded with brutal force feedings. The excerpt included here, from the clandestine prison diary of NWP member Rose Winslow written in 1917, described the rigors of that experience.

If this thing is necessary we will naturally go through with it. Force is so stupid weapon. I feel so happy doing my bit for decency for our war, which is after all, real and fundamental.Alice Paul is as thin as ever, pale and large-eyed. We have been in solitary for five weeks. There is nothing to tell but that the days go by somehow. I have felt quite feeble the last few days‹ faint, so that I could hardly get my hair brushed, my arms ached so...My fainting probably means nothing except that I am not strong after these weeks. I know YOU won’t be alarmed.Alice Paul is in the psychopathic ward. She dreaded forcible feeding frightfully, and I hate to think how she must be feeling, I had a nervous time of it, gasping a long time afterward, and my stomach rejecting during the process. I spent a bad, restless night, but otherwise I am all right. The poor soul who fed me got liberally besprinkled during the process. I heard myself making the most hideous sounds.... One feels so forsaken when one lies prone and people shove a pipe down one’s stomach.This morning but for an astounding tiredness, I am all right. I am waiting to see what happens when the President realizes that brutal bullying isn’t quite a statesmanlike method for settling a demand for justice at home. At least, if men are supine enough to endure, women “to their eternal glory” are not....... Don’t let them tell you we take this well. Miss Paul vomits much. I do, too . . . . We think of the coming feeding all day. It is horrible. The doctor thinks I take it well. I hate the thought of Alice Paul and the others if I take it well....All the officers here know we are making this hunger strike that women fighting for liberty may be considered political prisoners; we have told them. God knows we don’t want other women ever to have to do this over again.

Document 4:

Title: Party watchfires burn outside White House, Jan. 1919 Sign Text: “President Wilson is Deceiving the world when he appears as the prophet of Democracy. President Wilson has opposed those who demand democracy for this country. He is responsible for the Disenfranchisement of Millions of Americans. We in America know this. The world will find him out.”

Primary Source Analysis - National Woman’s Party

1) According to documents 1, 2, and 4, which political leader is the NWP targeting in their protests?

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2) How would you describe the word choice or language of the protest signs of the NWP? Cite evidence from the documents to support your claims.

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3) Over time, do the protest tactics of the NWP escalate? Or weaken? Provide evidence from at least 2 of the documents to support your answer.

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4) What impact does force feeding (document 3) have on the imprisoned members of the NWP? What does this tell you about the members of the NWP?

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5) How would you describe the overall protest tactics of the National Woman’s Party? Do you think these practices will have an impact on policy or lawmakers? Support your answer with evidence from the documents.

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Compare and contrast the National Woman’s Party & the National American Woman Suffrage Association using this venn diagram.

NWP NAWSA

Writing Task 19th Amendment: Changing Society

Directions: Using information from the document above, please respond to the following task. Task: Using the information from the documents above and your knowledge of US History to respond to the following task:

Following the completion of the venn diagram - complete the following short writing task:● Imagine you are living in 1918 - and you are witnessing the women’s suffrage

movement. You are editor for USA Herald Newspaper - and your boss has recently asked you to write a three paragraph editorial that answers the following question:

○ How does social change happen? What motivates lawmakers to write new laws protecting the rights of, and expanding the rights of, individuals?

○ Which organization - the NWP or the NAWSA is more likely to have an impact on the women’s suffrage movement and the proposal to amend the constitution granting women the right to vote? Why?

■ Argue that one group’s tactics are more effective than the other

● argue means to “give reasons or cite evidence in support of an idea, action, or theory, typically with the aim of persuading others to share one's view.”