Carrie Chapman Catt’s Address to Congress on Women’s Suffrage

1. Carrie Chapman Catt’s Address to Congresson Women’s Suffrage Emily Wells AP English III K. Saunders 11 March 2013

2. Background Carrie was born Carrie Clinton Lane in Wisconsin on January 9, 1859 to Lucius and Maria Lane. She was 13 years old when she learned that women could not vote and became a leader of the woman suffrage movement as an adult. She married Leo Chapman in 1885 but he caught typhoid fever and died the next year. Carrie married George W. Catt in 1890. He was very supportive of her dedication to women’s rights. Carrie succeeded Susan B. Anthony as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1900.

3. SOAPSTONE Carrie Chapman Catt spoke in front of Congress about voting for women’s suffragein November 1917. Catt felt strongly about women’s suffrage and knew that her efforts were not going to waste. She was serious about convincing Congress to vote in favor of women. “Woman suffrage is inevitable.” Claim of fact

4. Claim of value “With such a history behind it, how can our nation escape the logic it has never failed to follow, when its last un-enfranchised class calls for the vote? Behold our Uncle Sam floating the banner with one hand, “Taxation without representation is tyranny,” and with the other seizing the billions of dollars paid in taxes by women to whom he refuses “representation.” Denying women the right to vote goes against everything our country was built on.

5. Claim of policy “Gentlemen, we hereby petition you, our only designated representatives, to redress our grievances by the immediate passage of the Federal Suffrage Amendment and to use your influence to secure its ratification in your own state…”