Carrie Chapman Catt made a politically savvy choice, going against her personal pacifist beliefs, to pledge NAWSA support for U.S. entry into World War I. She did this to gain the support of President Woodrow Wilson for the national women’s suffrage movement and a national referendum granting women the right to vote.

Carrie Chapman Catt devoted most of her life to the expansion of women’s rights nationwide and around the world, and is recognized as one of the key leaders of the American women’s suffrage movement. Her political strategies and organizational skills contributed to the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution on August 18, 1920. 

This segment is from Iowa PBS’s documentary Carrie Chapman Catt: Warrior for Women which tells the compelling story of the Iowa suffragist and her role in the women’s suffrage movement.