Womans Suffrage

3 Pages 625 Words

There where many differences between the reformist and radical woman’s suffrage movements at the turn of the century. The reformist suffrage movement was known as the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and was run by Carrie Chapman Catt. The radical suffrage was call the National Woman’s Party (NWP) and was headed by Alice Paul. Although both groups worked hard to get woman the right to vote, they want about it in very different ways.
The NAWSA was formed in 1890 with the union of the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) and the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). The NAWSA separated the traditional association of woman’s rights with the rights of blacks in order to gain support in the South without much success. Carrie Chapman Catt gained the presidency of the NAWSA in 1900, and attempted to appear more conservative by developing “the society plan” which tried to recruit college educated and politically influential woman into the woman’s movement. Catt resigned as president in 1904 to care for her sick husband but returned to the presidency of the NAWSA in 1915. In 1912 the progressive movement gave the NAWSA new life when labor, trade unions, socialists, and working woman started to back the woman’s suffrage movement. The cotton and liquor industries try to weaken progressivism and woman’s suffrage. Catt wanted to use state level organizations and tough negotiation in order to convince President Wilson and individual states to support the woman’s suffrage movement. Catt set aside her pacifist views and supported the war effort in World War I in order to gain political leverage for the NAWSA. Catt remanded non-partisan in her efforts towards woman’s suffrage and was willing to fight the long fight in order to obtain her goals.
Alice Paul started the National Woman’s Party (NWP), after returning from working on woman’s suffrage in Britain. The NWP was a much more radical grou...