Bryn Mawr College Library Special Collections

Carrie Chapman Catt Albums
(Part of the Carrie Chapman Catt Papers)

Part I: Description

Special Collections Department, Bryn Mawr College Library
Collection Number: 15

Copyright © 2000 by Special Collections Department, Bryn Mawr College Library

June 2000
Last Updated: January 9, 2006

Extent

Total Boxes: Six clamshell boxes

Administrative Information

Provenance

Gift of estate of Carrie Chapman Catt, 1947.

Ownership & Literary Rights

The Carrie Chapman Catt Albums, part of the Carrie Chapman Catt Papers, are the physical property of Special Collections Department, Bryn Mawr College Library. Literary rights, including copyright, belong to the authors or their legal heirs and assigns.

Cite as:

Carrie Chapman Catt Papers, Special Collections Department, Bryn Mawr College Library.

Restrictions on Access

This collection is open for research.

CARRIE LANE CHAPMAN CATT (1859-1947)

Carrie Lane Chapman Catt was an internationally recognized suffragist, feminist and political activist. She was born in Ripon, Wisconsin in 1859 and graduated from Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm (now Iowa State University) in 1880. Catt then worked as a law clerk, school teacher, principal, school superintendent, and reporter. In 1887 she joined the Iowa Woman Suffrage Association and served as state organizer from 1890-1892. Her skills as a speechwriter and organizer brought her national attention and in 1900 Catt succeeded Susan B. Anthony as President of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. She remained in this position until 1904.

Catt founded the International Woman Suffrage Alliance in 1902 and served as its president for many years. She is credited with revitalizing the NAWSA during her second tenure as President (1915-1920). She formed the League of Women Voters in 1920 and was its honorary president until her death in 1947. In 1925 Catt founded the National Committee on the Cause and Cure of War. (Her work in the world peace movement was under FBI surveillance from May 1927 to July 1929.) During the 1930s and 1940s Catt was active in working against the Nazis, particularly their persecution of Jews. Although a champion of world peace, Catt was a vocal supporter of the Allied Forces during World War II. She died in New Rochelle, New York in 1947.

DESCRIPTION OF THE ALBUMS

[The collection description and container list are based on Lucy Fisher West, The Papers of M. Carey Thomas in the Bryn Mawr College Archives. Reel Guide and Index to the Microfilm Collection. Research Publications, Inc., 1982.]

The six albums are part of the Carrie Chapman Catt Papers at Bryn Mawr College. They contain approximately 815 photographs and a very limited amount of printed matter, mostly newspaper clippings, related to the history of international woman’s suffrage. The photographs cover the period from ca. 1840 to ca. 1940, with the majority dating from the last years of the nineteenth century through the first two decades of the twentieth century.

The photograph albums were originally bound in black leather covers. The albums were dismantled in early 2000 but the album covers were retained. Each album is in an individual box. Pages are grouped in threes and fours to facilitate handling and location of subjects. Original page order was maintained.

The albums measure approximately eleven by fifteen inches. The photographs themselves are varied and irregular in size, ranging from approximately two by three inches to roughly ten by fourteen inches. Although most of the photographs are remarkably well preserved, a very few have tears along the margin and some are slightly faded. Legends (presumably written by Catt) accompany all of the images; some appear in white ink on the black mounting paper and others in black ink handwritten directly on the photographs. The first two albums are devoted to themes in the history of suffrage; the last four follow a geographic organization.

All of the images are available as part of Triptych, a digital initiative of Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore Colleges.

CONTAINER LIST

Box 1 (Album 1)

"Parades and Page[a]nts" is comprised of photographs of parades, floats, marching units, street meetings, suffrage posters, and suffrage headquarters from throughout the United States. Subjects of series of photographs include "Your Girl and Mine," identified as a woman suffrage picture melodrama, the sale and distribution of the Woman’s Journal; the Illinois suffrage campaign; and World War I soldiers’ support for woman’s suffrage.

Box 2 (Album 2)

"Pioneers and Leaders" is made up of individual and group photographs of women leaders of the suffrage movement augmented with a small lot of photographs of male reformers. Roughly chronological in format, the album features National American Woman Suffrage Association officers, particularly Susan B. Anthony. Along with portraits, there are informal photographs of ceremonies in Washington, D.C. and several states celebrating the submission of the suffrage resolution to the states in 1919. The volume concludes with a picture of the final meeting of the Woman Suffrage Council in Washington on April 23, 1925.

Box 3 (Album 3) "States M-W-Omitting New York"

Box 4 (Album 4) "States A-L"

Box 5 (Album 5) "New York State and N.Y. City"

Box 6 (Album 6) "International"

Albums 3 through 6 depict the history of the movement by states and internationally. Formal and informal photographs of suffrage leaders, in groups or singly, predominate. In addition, there is a lesser amount of photographs of parades and rallies, headquarters buildings and offices, ceremonies, and celebrations.

Albums 3 ("States M-W, Omitting New York"), 4 ("States A-L") and 5 ("New York State and N.Y. City") are devoted to the individual state organizations. They afford a pictorial record of local campaigns and provide a collection of portraits of leaders and workers in the suffrage movement at the state and municipal level. Album 5 includes photographs of the New York City suffrage parades.

Album 6 focuses on the international suffrage movement. Although most of the photographs are of European subjects, Africa, Asia, South America, and Canada also are represented. Of special note are numerous photographs of international woman’s suffrage conferences.

Processing and description by Barbara Ward Grubb, Marianne Hansen, Lucy Fisher West.

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Last Update: January 9, 2006 , Special Collections at SpecColl@brynmawr.edu