The National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) was an American women's rights organization formed in May 1890 as a unification of the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) and the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). The NAWSA continued the work of both associations by becoming the parent organization of hundreds of smaller local and state groups, and by helping to pass woman suffrage legislation at the state and local level. The NAWSA was the largest and most important suffrage organization in the United States, and was the primary promoter of women's right to vote. Like AWSA and NWSA before it, the NAWSA pushed for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing women's voting rights, and was instrumental in winning the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1920.
Susan B. Anthony was the dominant figure in NAWSA from 1890 to 1900, at which time she stepped down in favor of Carrie Chapman Catt. Catt was president of NAWSA from 1900 to 1904 and again from 1915 onward. Anna Howard Shaw was president of NAWSA from 1904 to 1915. After success in 1920, the NAWSA was reformed as the League of Women Voters, which continues the legacy.
Read more about National American Woman Suffrage Association: Background Conflict, Merger, Gaining The Vote, Presidents of The NAWSA
Famous quotes containing the words national, american, woman, suffrage and/or association:
“I, with other Americans, have perhaps unduly resented the stream of criticism of American life ... more particularly have I resented the sneers at Main Street. For I have known that in the cottages that lay behind the street rested the strength of our national character.”
—Herbert Hoover (18741964)
“After all, the chief business of the American people is business.”
—Calvin Coolidge (18721933)
“A man assumes that a womans refusal is just part of a game. Or, at any rate, a lot of men assume that. When a man says no, its no. When a woman says no, its yes, or at least maybe. There is even a joke to that effect. And little by little, women begin to believe in this view of themselves.”
—Erica Jong (b. 1942)
“... a large portion of those who demand woman suffrage are persons who have not been trained to reason, and are chiefly guided by their generous sensibilities.”
—Catherine E. Beecher (18001878)
“It is not merely the likeness which is precious ... but the association and the sense of nearness involved in the thing ... the fact of the very shadow of the person lying there fixed forever! It is the very sanctification of portraits I thinkand it is not at all monstrous in me to say ... that I would rather have such a memorial of one I dearly loved, than the noblest Artists work ever produced.”
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (18061861)