Women voters encouraged to honor movement leader

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

Area women are being urged to celebrate their right to vote by honoring the woman who helped lead the fight to ratify the 19th Amendment.

One of the granite historical markers next to the sidewalks in Central Park in Charles City honors Carrie Lane Chapman Catt, who was raised in Charles City and who was a leader in the women’s suffrage movement in the early 1900s.

The National 19th Amendment Society is asking women voters to take their “I Voted” stickers that they receive at polling places and stick them on a plexiglass sheet that is now covering the granite marker in Central Park.

Susan Jacob, an officer in the National 19th Amendment Society, said that in the 2016 election women placed their “I Voted” stickers on the gravestones of Susan B. Anthony and Chapman Catt in New York state.

“Since Carrie’s ‘Winning Plan’ helped get the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ratified, we wanted the town where she grew up to recognize her efforts,” Jacob said.

The National 19th Amendment Society is a Floyd County organization dedicated to honoring Chapman Catt’s memory and telling her story. It runs the restored Carrie Lane Chapman Catt Girlhood Home and Interpretive Center southeast of Charles City.

Once the stickers have been collected on the clear plastic sheet it will be displayed at the Girlhood Home museum, Jacob said.

Chapman Catt succeeded Susan B. Anthony as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and founded the League of Women Voters and the International Alliance of Women.

She was instrumental in getting Congress to pass and enough states to ratify the 19th Amendment for it to be adopted in 1920, giving women the right to vote.