Special series examines groundbreaking work of women’s suffrage leader 

Onto victory

By Jerry Harrington

In the summer of 1919, the proposed 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote had passed both houses of Congress by the necessary two-thirds majority. The next stage was to get three-quarters of the states to approve the amendment to enshrine it permanently in the U.S. Constitution.

 

At that point, the well-oiled political organization and the aggressive promotional campaign designed by Carrie Chapman Catt burst forth state-by-state. 

 

After Congressional ratification, Catt immediately blasted telegrams to the governors in all the states, urging them to ratify without delay. In separate communications, Catt cautioned supporters against allowing the amendment to come to a vote unless they were sure it would pass. Victory meant victory, declared Catt, and defeat could cast a negative shadow on the effort. The first states to pass the amendment were Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan, all less than a week after Congress sent it to the states. Then the floodgates started with state after state approving it. (Iowa ratified it on July 2, 1919, with the governor’s signature after legislative passage.) Within four months, 17 of the necessary 36 states had done so.

 

Taking nothing for granted, Catt toured a dozen states in the months leading up to passage, making personal appeals before several legislatures. By the end of February 1920, 33 states had approved the proposed 19th Amendment. In March, West Virginia cast its vote for approval and, two weeks later, the state of Washington voted in favor, making it 35 states. Only one more state was needed to place women’s voting rights in the U.S. Constitution. 

 

But victory was yet not assured. By the middle of 1920, the battle to pass the suffragist amendment came down to the state of Tennessee and all the forces — pro and anti — rushed to the Volunteer State to take their stand, including Catt. Prior to the legislative vote, Catt raced across the state in a speaking tour in major cities. Then, as the vote neared, she stationed herself at the Hotel Hermitage in Nashville to direct the efforts.

 

The Tennessee Senate passed the amendment in a special session and the eyes of the nation shifted to the House where the powerful Tennessee Speaker came out against it. The stakes were raised high because there were few other states where passage was possible. Most of them were in the conservative South (where legal obstacles and Jim Crow customs prevented most African-American men and women from voting until the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act); if it failed in Tennessee, that might mean the effort’s doom.

 

As for Catt, she was facing the full force of the anti-suffragists’ wrath. 

 

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