[1] Three leaders of the women's movement during this period, Lucy Stone, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony, played prominent roles in the creation of the NAWSA many years later.

[2] The AERA essentially collapsed in 1869, partly because of disagreement over the proposed Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which would enfranchise African American men.

"[4] In May 1869, two days after the acrimonious debates at what turned out to be the final AERA annual meeting, Anthony, Stanton and their allies formed the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA).

She advocated a coalition of radical social reform groups, including Populists and Socialists, who would support women's suffrage as part of a joint list of demands.

In a letter to suffragist Antoinette Brown Blackwell, she suggested the creation of an umbrella organization of which the AWSA and the NWSA would become auxiliaries, but that idea did not gain supporters.

"[26] Charging that Anthony had used underhanded tactics to thwart opposition to the merger, Gage formed a competing organization in 1890 called the Woman's National Liberal Union, but it did not develop a significant following.

[28] In February, Stone, Stanton, Anthony and other leaders of both organizations issued an "Open Letter to the Women of America" declaring their intention to work together.

[33] Stone's public visibility had declined significantly, contrasting sharply with the attention she had attracted in her younger days as a speaker on the national lecture circuit.

[35] In 1890, prominent members of the House and Senate were among the two hundred people who attended her seventieth birthday celebration, a national event that took place in Washington three days before the convention that united the two suffrage organizations.

She urged the new organization to concern itself with a broad range of reforms, saying, "When any principle or question is up for discussion, let us seize on it and show its connection, whether nearly or remotely, with woman's disfranchisement.

Beginning around 1900, this broad movement began at the grassroots level with such goals as combating corruption in government, eliminating child labor, and protecting workers and consumers.

Her administrative and interpersonal skills did not match those that Catt would display during her second term in office, but the organization made striking gains under Shaw's leadership.

Blatch had recently returned to the United States after several years in England, where she had worked with suffrage groups in the early phases of employing militant tactics as part of their campaign.

The Equality League gained a following by engaging in activities that many members of the NAWSA initially considered too daring, such as suffrage parades and open air rallies.

She and her co-workers developed a detailed plan to unite the various suffrage associations in New York City (and later in the entire state) in an organization modeled on political machines like Tammany Hall.

[73] In 1909, Frances Squires Potter, a NAWSA member from Chicago, proposed the creation of suffrage community centers called "political settlements."

Du Bois, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), publicly challenged NAWSA's reluctance to accept black women.

Her committee was too small to seriously affect the NAWSA's direction, but her public condemnation of the proposed amendment, expressed in terms of vehement racism, deepened fissures within the organization.

The people of Warren were active in various programs of the national movement for years, until the 19th Amendment was ratified by a sufficient number of states, and authorized by President Wilson in 1920.

[92] A serious challenge to the NAWSA leadership began to develop after a young activist named Alice Paul returned to the U.S. from England in 1910, where she had been part of the militant wing of the suffrage movement.

Gordon and Clay, the most persistent adversaries of a federal suffrage amendment within NAWSA, had been out-maneuvered by their opponents and no longer held national posts.

Catt agreed to turn the New York work over to others and to accept the NAWSA presidency in December, 1915 on the condition that she could name her own executive board, which previously had always been elected by the annual convention.

[84] At an executive board meeting in March, 1916, Catt described the organization's dilemma by saying, "The Congressional Union is drawing off from the National Association those women who feel it is possible to work for suffrage by the Federal route only.

This plan mandated work toward the national suffrage amendment as the priority for the entire organization and authorized the creation of a professional lobbying team to support this goal in Washington.

[111] Charles Evans Hughes, his opponent in the presidential election that year, declined to speak at the convention, but he went farther than Wilson by endorsing the suffrage amendment.

Shaw was appointed as head of the Women's Committee for the Council of National Defense, which was established by the federal government to coordinate resources for the war and to promote public morale.

[120] In November 1917, the suffrage movement achieved a major victory when a referendum to enfranchise women passed by a large margin in New York, the most populous state in the country.

[123] The NAWSA launched a campaign to unseat four senators who had voted against the amendment, assembling a coalition of forces that included labor unions and prohibitionists.

Immediately after Congress passed the amendment, Suffrage House and the federal lobbying operation were shut down and resources were diverted to the ratification drive.

[115] Political leaders who were convinced that women's suffrage was inevitable began to pressure local and national legislators to support it so their party could claim credit for it in future elections.