Case for Women's Suffrage, The.
[Catt, Carrie Chapman]. Villiers, Brougham, ed. The Case for Women’s Suffrage. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1907.
8vo.; some pages faintly yellowed, else internally fine; rear pastedown printed with an advertisement for the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies; (“Funds Are Urgently Requested”); front endpaper bearing the stamp of the Women Suffrage Party at No. 1 Madison Ave., New York City; green cloth, stamped in gilt.
A presentation copy quite significant in the history of American feminism, the front endpaper inscribed: "Presented by Carrie Chapman Catt."
The volume itself is a collection of essays by the likes of Christabel and Emmeline Pankhurst, Millicent Garrett Fawcett, and other prominent British suffragettes. In each of the fifteen essays the famous (or infamous) agitator-authors argues vehemently, from slightly different perspectives, for woman’s right to vote as a human right.
In addition to the content, the volume is significant for two reasons: it provides, through its ownership stamp, evidence of communication between British and American suffrage advocates; and it bears a very early inscription (assuming it was inscribed when published, which is a logical conclusion) by Carrie Chapman Catt, one of the paragons of American feminism and one of the activists most credited with attaining women’s right to vote in the U.S.
In 1895 Carrie Chapman Catt joined the National American Woman Suffrage Association, recently formed by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton when two previously divided woman’s suffrage organizations merged in 1890. Anthony was so taken with Catt’s no-nonsense approach to the issues at hand, to her organizational skill, personal drive and leadership abilities, that she named her to succeed her as president of the Association when she stepped down in 1900. Catt served until 1904 and again during the crucial years 1915-1920, following her controversial challenge in 1914 to the popular view that the Democratic party as a whole was accountable for its failure to enact a suffrage amendment. Catt is credited with leading the NAWSA into adopting the then-controversial but ultimately winning state-by-state approach to gaining suffrage for women. (See also in this catalogue Susan B. Anthony.)
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