Petition for Woman Suffrage Committee

Description

On April 10, 1917, woman suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt sent a letter petitioning Speaker of the House Champ Clark on behalf of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. As president of the association, Catt wrote to urge the House to create a Committee on Woman Suffrage, like the one created as a select committee by the Senate in 1882. While highlighting the progress of woman suffrage in other countries, Catt noted how the House Judiciary Committee had ignored the reform effort. House Resolution 12, establishing a Committee on Woman Suffrage, was passed on September 24, 1917, and the committee was instrumental in shepherding through the 19th Amendment giving women in the United States the right to vote in 1920.