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Guide to the
Carrie Lane Chapman Catt CollectionFloyd County Historical Society
500 Gilbert Street
Charles City, Iowa 50616
(641) 228-1099
Introduction and Provenance
Access, Permission and Citation Guidelines
Biographical Sketch
Scope and Content Note
Additional Local Collections of Relevance
Series Descriptions
Note to the User
Size: 3 document boxes (1.5 linear feet)
Processed by: David McCartney
Processing date: July-August, 1996The Carrie Lane Chapman Catt Collection was initiated by the Floyd County Historical Society in 1935 by former Society president Mrs. Cecilia Blake. It is a cumulative, subject-based collection with multiple donors, including interested local residents as well as relatives of Mrs. Catt's. Many of the individual items in the collection bear the Society's identification stamp with a corresponding number. The researcher may identify such items by consulting with the Museum's Collections Manager.
Where possible, the remaining items' donors are identified within the container list.
Access, Permission and Citation Guidelines
Access to the Carrie Lane Chapman Catt Collection is unrestricted; however, permission to publish material from the collection must be requested in writing from the Collections Manager at the Floyd County Historical Society, 500 Gilbert St., Charles City, Iowa 50616. FAX telephone is (641) 228-1157.
When citing the source of material in this collection, researchers are requested to do so as follows:
"Carrie Lane Chapman Catt Collection
Floyd County (Iowa) Historical Society"Woman suffragist and world peace advocate Carrie Lane Chapman Catt (1859-1947) was born Carrie Clinton Lane on January 9, 1859, in Ripon, Wisconsin, the daughter of Lucius and Maria (Clinton) Lane. She had two brothers: Charles Herbert Lane (1856-1946) and William Harrison Lane (1871- 1907). In 1865 she and her family moved to rural Charles City, Iowa, where she attended public schools and graduated from the high school in 1877. In 1880, she graduated at the top of her class from the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm in Ames (now Iowa State University). She was also the only woman in her class.
In 1881, she became a teacher, high school principal, and, later, superintendent of schools in Mason City, Iowa. Her first public statements about woman suffrage, temperance and other issues were made during this time when she wrote a column for the Mason City Republican, a newspaper published by Leo Chapman, whom she married in 1885. (Leo Chapman died one year later as a result of typhoid.) She became a state organizer of the Iowa Woman Suffrage Association in 1887 and founded the Floyd County, Iowa, chapter of the Women's Political Equality League in 1891. Her second marriage, in 1890, was to George William Catt, a civil engineer and fellow student from Iowa Agricultural College. (George Catt died in 1905.) Their marriage contract included a provision permitting her to work four months per year in woman suffrage activities.
After presenting numerous lectures throughout Iowa, she organized the National American Woman Suffrage Association meeting in Des Moines in 1892 and was named the Association's finance chair. She was elected chair of its organization committee in 1895, and was elected president of the NAWSA in 1900, succeeding Susan B. Anthony, with whom she had been associated closely. She stepped down temporarily as Association president in 1904 when her husband and mother became very ill, but resumed her work as an organizer and public speaker in 1905, with tours in the United States and in Europe. She founded the International Women's Suffrage Alliance and toured worldwide on its behalf in 1911.
The peak of her suffrage activism occurred between 1915 and 1920, the final years of the federal Constitutional amendment campaign to ensure women the right to vote. She was again elected NAWSA president in 1916, and led campaigns to convince the U.S. Congress to pass a woman suffrage measure, which occurred in 1919. On August 26, 1920, the Tennessee state legislature ratified the amendment, the 36th state to do so, thus making the Nineteenth Amendment a part of the U.S. Constitution. Upon adoption of the amendment, the NAWSA was disbanded and in its place Mrs. Catt founded the National League of Women Voters, whose members elected her as honorary president, a post she held until 1938.
Her interest in world peace led her to found and chair the National Committee for the Cause and Cure of War, which held its first conference in 1925. She spoke in support of disarmament and elimination of military training in schools and colleges, and was an early proponent of the League of Nations and, later, the United Nations.
Mrs. Catt's numerous awards and commendations included honorary degrees from Smith College, Iowa State College, Moravian College for Women, and the University of Wyoming. She received the Pictorial Review annual Achievement Award in 1930, the American Hebrew Medal in 1933, the National Social Sciences Institute Award in 1940, and the Chi Omega Gold Medal in 1941, presented in a White House ceremony with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Several organizations identified Mrs. Catt as among the twentieth century's most influential women.
Her books included "Woman Suffrage and Politics," published in 1923 with co-author Nettie Rogers Shuler, identified in 1995 by the New York Public Library as one of the century's 100 most important works relating to social issues.
Mrs. Catt died on March 9, 1947, at her New Rochelle, New York, home at the age of 88. Neither she nor her brother William had children; her lateral descendants are direct descendants of her brother Charles.
For further information about the life of Carrie Lane Chapman Catt, consult the following biographies:
Van Voris, Jacqueline. "Carrie Chapman Catt: A Public Life" New York: Feminist Press at City University of New York, 1987.Fowler, Robert Booth. "Carrie Catt: Feminist Politician" Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1986.
Peck, Mary Gray. "Carrie Chapman Catt" New York: H.W. Wilson Company, 1944.
The papers are divided into nine series: Newspaper Clippings; Speeches; Honors, Awards and Presentations , Publications and Monographs; Carrie Chapman Catt Memorial Fund, Inc.; Photographs; Genealogical Records; Correspondence; and Surrogate Photocopies. They span the period of 1891 to the present.
Roughly half of the collection's volume consists of newspaper clippings assembled initially by Mrs. Cecilia Blake of the Floyd County Historical Society, and are arranged chronologically. The correspondence concerns primarily family estate matters, genealogical queries, and social contact.
Additional Local Collections of RelevanceIn addition to the Carrie Lane Chapman Catt Collection, the Floyd County Historical Society also houses a small (less than .1 linear ft.) collection pertaining to the general theme of woman suffrage, including correspondence between state and local organizers (ca. 1890-1905).
A collection of greeting cards and postcards from Mrs. Catt to local relatives is housed separately at the Museum. They were donated to the Museum by Mrs. Warren Lane of Charles City.
The Historical Society is developing a collection of records from the National Nineteenth Amendment Society, a non-profit organization incorporated in 1991 whose purpose is to restore and maintain Mrs. Catt's childhood home, located about three miles southeast of Charles City.
For access to the above materials, contact the Collections Manager of the Floyd County Museum.
The Charles City Public Library houses microfilmed copies of local newspapers dating to the late 1880s, and may contain references to local events or meetings organized by Mrs. Catt. However, access to newspapers is available only by date and not by subject.
Series 1 Newspaper Clippings 1891-present Box 1, all
This series consists of newspaper clippings, mostly original, pertaining to numerous aspects of Mrs. Catt's life. They are arranged in chronological order, divided roughly by decade by each folder, with the earliest material at the beginning. Because some clippings from different dates were assembled together on common sheets, it is not possible to arrange the original clippings fully in chronological order.
Series 2 Speeches Box 2, Folder 1
This series reflects Mrs. Catt's career as a public speaker. It includes copies of her 1939 speech, presented on the occasion of her 80th birthday.
Series 3 Honors, Awards and Presentations Box 2, Folders 2-6
This series consists of materials pertaining to numerous ceremonies honoring Mrs. Catt, both during her life and posthumously. It includes copies of speeches about Mrs. Catt presented by other individuals.
Series 4 Publications and Monographs Box 2, Folders 7-9
Articles and essays pertaining to Mrs. Catt, both published and unpublished, are included.
Series 5 Carrie Chapman Catt Memorial Fund, Inc. Box 2, Folder 10
Following the death of Mrs. Catt in 1947, the League of Women Voters founded the Carrie Chapman Catt Memorial Fund, Inc., a non-profit educational organization. The Fund produced booklets and other publications intended to promote voter awareness of civics related matters. This series includes information about the Fund's beginnings.
Series 6 Photographs Box 2, Folder 11
This series includes portraits of Mrs. Catt taken at various times during her life, beginning at age six. It also includes numerous photographs of the rural Charles City home in which she was raised.
Series 7 Genealogical Records Box 2, Folder 12
Records pertaining to the Lane and Clinton families are included, along with several obituaries. (Mrs. Catt's family name was Lane; her mother's family name was Clinton.)
Series 8 Correspondence 1902-1947 Box 2, Folders 13-14
This series consists primarily of personal letters written between Mrs. Catt and numerous relatives and friends. Some of the letters pertain exclusively to family estate matters and genealogy, while others are more social in nature.
Series 9 Photocopies Box 3, all folders
Because of the fragile condition of some of the foregoing documents, surrogate photocopies were produced and placed in this series, in numbered folders corresponding roughly to folders containing the original documents. The researcher is therefore asked to consult this series for the availability of the desired document before handling any of the original versions appearing in Boxes 1 and 2.
A container list maintained by the Museum as part of this finding aid identifies briefly each item in the collection, in the order it is arranged, beginning with Box 1, Folder 1. (The container list is available only at the Museum and is not available online at the present time.) Because the list corresponds to the actual order of items in the collection, the researcher is asked to use no more than one folder at a time, and to return the contents to their folder in their original order. This will permit ease of access for future users.
Also, multiple sheets bound together by a plastic clip comprise one item. The user is asked not to disassemble these. (Plastic clips, rather than staples, are used to avoid document deterioration.)
Thank you for your cooperation.
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