Few women were more important in the early 20th Century fight for suffrage than Carrie Chapman Catt. A skilled organizer, her “Winning Plan” laid a roadmap for women’s rights that would ultimately become the 19th Amendment.

Catt graduated from Iowa State Agricultural College (today Iowa State University) in 1880, the only woman in her graduating class while working odd jobs to pay her way. In the process, she advocated for the inclusion of women in many areas of the university previously reserved only for men, becoming the first woman to speak extemporaneously in meetings.

In 1900 she became Susan B. Anthony’s handpicked successor as President of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, of which she served two terms as president. For much of the next two decades, she was integral in suffrage movements domestically and worldwide founding the International Woman Suffrage Alliance in 1902.

After the passage of the 19th Amendment, Catt continued her work for women’s suffrage in Europe and South America and became active in peace movements during both world wars.

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