VII International Woman Suffrage Congress Budapest June 15-20." program.
[Catt, Carrie Chapman]. Program: VII International Woman Suffrage Congress Budapest June 15-20. Budapest [Hungary]: Press-Committee, 1913.
Pamphlet, 8-3/8 x 5-11/16,” 44 pp.; printed brown wrappers lettered in dark blue with the stamp for the 1913 Congress reproduced at the front cover; wrappers somewhat worn with various nicks and chips (front upper foretip lacking; chips at upper and lower ends of spine; rear lower foretip lacking); rear cover slightly soiled; generally very good.
Contents (text generally provided in English, French, German and Hungarian throughout): Invitation to the Congress; portrait of Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, President of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance; the Hungarian Executive Committee of the Alliance with half-tone portraits; Program, beginning with a religious service conducted by Rev. Anna Howard Shaw; and advertisements.
The profiles of the Executive Committee reflect the wide range in background typical of woman suffrage supporters, from a countess, to teachers, to a factory owner. The program announces that representatives from Australia, Belgium, Bohemia, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Finland, France, Galicia, Great Britain, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Austria, Portugal, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, Servia, South Africa, and the United States will attend. Also to be represented at the 1913 Congress for the first time will be China, India, Persia, Rumania and Spain. The introduction emphasizes that the woman suffrage movement encompasses leaders in the temperance movement, education reform, the advancement of working women’s rights, the peace movement, etc. “Furnishing sufficient evidence that the success of these movements entirely depends on the Enfranchisement of Women.” The introduction ends by declaring,
Since the Congress held at Stockholm in the year 1911, Portugal, China, Cansas [sic], Washington, California, Arizona, Michigan, Oregon have granted votes to women, and Danmark [sic], England, Sweden, Holland, Hungary, Iceland etc. are now on the eve of victory, the coming Congress augurs well for general rejoicing. No one should miss this opportunity of taking part in the greatest of all freedom-and-culture-movements.
The International Woman Suffrage Alliance evolved out of efforts by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton as early as 1883 to promote cooperation among the various national suffrage organizations. The NWSA hosted an international gathering in Washington, DC in connection with the 40th anniversary of Seneca Falls in 1888. However, only when the NWSA and the AWSA had reunited were the Americans able to spearhead an International Council. In 1904 at the Berlin convocation of the International Council of Women, with Susan B. Anthony, Mary Terrell Church and Carrie Chapman Catt in attendance, the International Woman Suffrage Alliance was established with woman suffrage as its principle goal. The Alliance included just the United States and eight northern European countries. Carrie Chapman Catt was elected the first president of the Alliance, an office she held through 1913. She presided over Congresses in Copenhagen, Amsterdam, London, Stockholm and Budapest (her last as President), each Congress showing a steady increase in the number of countries represented (some 29 in 1913). Before another biennial congress could be held, World War I erupted, thwarting further efforts for international cooperation. Though the International Woman Suffrage Alliance rose again in the wake of World War I, the great surge it enjoyed under Carrie Chapman Catt’s leadership could not be duplicated. The first program from an International Woman Suffrage Congress we have seen or handled, reflecting a lesser known aspect of the work of Mrs. Catt and the movement abroad..
American Women’s History, by Weatherford, pp. 72-73, 185.
NAW I, pp. 309-312
Timelines of American Women’s History, p. 39.
Women’s Suffrage in America, by Fro
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