National American Woman Suffrage Association

The National American Woman Suffrage Association ( NAWSA ) was an American women's rights organization which campaigned for women's suffrage. It was founded in May 1890 by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. The NAWSA grew out of a merger of two established organizations 1869 National Woman Suffrage Association ( NWSA ) and the American Woman Suffrage Association ( AWSA ).

The origin AWSA and NWSA organizations

The American Woman Suffrage Association was founded by Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe and Josephine Ruffin in Boston. Its members came from the conservative spectrum, many also were from the anti-slavery movement emerged American Equal Right Association ( AERA ), the primary campaigning for a colored suffrage. The organization was less militant than the NWSA and did not care about issues such as discrimination against women in the workplace and a more favorable for women divorce law. Since 1870, Lucy Stone published the Women's Journal for the AWSA.

Unlike conservative AWSA founded by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony in New York National Woman Suffrage Association took from the beginning a more radical position. The NWSA took only women as members and adopted a resolution that opposed the 15th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. That guaranteed only for all male U.S. citizens of all races and ethnicities equal suffrage, the women remained the right to vote denied. The NWSA policy was also against the objectives of the AERA, the NWSA demanded a 16th Amendment to the Constitution with an independent of gender and race universal suffrage. While the work of the AWSA focused on the women's suffrage, the program of the NAWSA also covered a wider range of women's policy issues.

The merger

Over time, the policy of the NWSA was conservative. When Susan B. Anthony was elected president of the organization, they concentrated their efforts on women's suffrage. The other women's political goals that were previously also the subject of NWSA, were neglected. The disappointed by this change of direction radical suffragists turned away from the NWSA. 1890 finally agreed to the American Woman Suffrage Association a controversial merger with the National Woman Suffrage Association to. Both organizations merged against the votes of Joslyn Gage, Olympia Brown Cady Stanton and the National American Woman Suffrage Association, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Carrie Chapman Catt, Frances Willard, Mary Church Terrell, Matilda Joslyn Gage and Anna Howard Shaw was conducted.

After the merger, the NAWSA lost with time, their political clout. The achievement of women's suffrage in the United States by the 19th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the organization lost its meaning entirely one and broke up 1920. At its last meeting Carry Ann Chapman founded from the holdings of the NAWSA still existing grassroots League of Women Voters.