Nineteenth Amendment/ Women's Suffrage

Due largely to the organization and leadership of Carrie Chapman Catt, the bill giving women the right to vote became law within 18 months. With the battle that had consumed nearly half her life finally won, Catt went on to devote the next 25 years to working for peace as the basis of human rights. This biography reveals a public life that was lived with enthusiasm and faith in the human race, and documents the journey of an extraordinary woman whose ideas continue to influence the lives ofmillions.

"Both a page-turning drama and an inspiration for every reader" -- Hillary Rodham Clinton Soon to be a major television event, the nail-biting climax of one of the greatest political battles in American history: the ratification of the constitutional amendment that granted women the right to vote. Nashville, August 1920. Thirty-five states have approved the Nineteenth Amendment, granting women the right to vote; one last state--Tennessee--is needed for women's voting rights to be the law of the land. The suffragists face vicious opposition from politicians, clergy, corporations, and racists who don't want black women voting. And then there are the "Antis"--women who oppose their own enfranchisement, fearing suffrage will bring about the nation's moral collapse. And in one hot summer, they all converge for a confrontation, replete with booze and blackmail, betrayal and courage. Following a handful of remarkable women who led their respective forces into battle, The Woman's Hour is the gripping story of how America's women won their own freedom, and the opening campaign in the great twentieth-century battles for civil rights.

Organized and methodical, Carrie Chapman Catt led the National American Woman Suffrage Association for over twenty years, culminating in the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment.