Carrie Chapman Catt was an American women's suffrage leader who campaigned for the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which gave U.S. women the right to vote in 1920. Catt served as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association from 1900 to 1904 and 1915 to 1920. She founded the League of Women Voters in 1920 and the International Woman Suffrage Alliance in 1904, which was later named International Alliance of Women. She "led an army of voteless women in 1919 to pressure Congress to pass the constitutional amendment giving them the right to vote and convinced state legislatures to ratify it in 1920". She "was one of the best-known women in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century and was on all lists of famous American women."
The International Council of Women (ICW) is a women's organization working across national boundaries for the common cause of advocating human rights for women. In March and April 1888, women leaders came together in Washington D.C., with 80 speakers and 49 delegates representing 53 women's organizations from 9 countries: Canada, the United States, Ireland, India, United Kingdom, Finland, Denmark, France and Norway. Women from professional organizations, trade unions, arts groups and benevolent societies participate. National councils are affiliated to the ICW and thus make themselves heard at the international level. The ICW enjoys consultative status with the United Nations and its Permanent Representatives to ECOSOC, ILO, FAO, WHO, UNDP, UNEP, UNESCO, UNICEF, UNCTAD, and UNIDO.
The International Alliance of Women is an international non-governmental organization that works to promote women's rights and gender equality. It was historically the main international organization that campaigned for women's suffrage. IAW stands for an inclusive, intersectional and progressive liberal feminism on the basis of human rights and liberal democracy, and has a liberal internationalist outlook. IAW's principles state that all genders are "born equally free [and are] equally entitled to the free exercise of their individual rights and liberty," that "women's rights are human rights" and that "human rights are universal, indivisible and interrelated."
The International Congress of Women was created so that groups of existing women's suffrage movements could come together with other women's groups around the world. It served as a way for women organizations across the nation to establish formal means of communication and to provide more opportunities for women to ask the big questions relating to feminism at the time. The congress has been utilized by a number of feminist and pacifist events since 1878. A few groups that participated in the early conferences were The International Council of Women, The International Alliance of Women and The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.
The Open Christmas Letter was a public message for peace addressed "To the Women of Germany and Austria", signed by a group of 101 British suffragists at the end of 1914 as the first Christmas of the First World War approached. The Open Christmas Letter was written in acknowledgment of the mounting horror of modern war and as a direct response to letters written to American feminist Carrie Chapman Catt, the president of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (IWSA), by a small group of German women's rights activists. Published in January 1915 in Jus Suffragii, the journal of the IWSA, the Open Christmas Letter was answered two months later by a group of 155 prominent German and Austrian women who were pacifists. The exchange of letters between women of nations at war helped promote the aims of peace, and helped prevent the fracturing of the unity which lay in the common goal they shared, suffrage for women.
Jessie Chrystal Macmillan was a suffragist, peace activist, barrister, feminist and the first female science graduate from the University of Edinburgh as well as that institution's first female honours graduate in mathematics. She was an activist for women's right to vote, and for other women's causes. She was the second woman to plead a case before the House of Lords, and was one of the founders of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.
Jeni Bojilova-Pateva, also transliterated as Zheni Bozhilova-Pateva, was a Bulgarian teacher, writer, women's rights activist, and suffragist, who became involved in the pacifist movement. After graduating with teaching credentials in 1893, she began her profession, but was barred from teaching when a law was passed in 1898 that limited the rights of married women. She turned to activism and journalism, becoming involved in the international women's movement that year. A highly prominent feminist, she was one of the founders of the Bulgarian Women's Union in 1901. During 1905 in Burgas, she founded "Self-Awareness", a feminist group, and served as its chair for 25 years. As editor of the Women's Voice she published articles on developments in the women's movement in Bulgaria and abroad, as well as about issues affecting women. Throughout her career, she published over 500 articles and books.
Marguerite de Witt-Schlumberger was a French campaigner for pronatalism, alcoholic abstinence, and feminism. She was the president of the French Union for Women's Suffrage movement. She married into the Schlumberger family and became a powerfully influential matriarch and the mother of several sons who achieved notability in their own right. An activist in international women's rights circles, Witt-Schlumberger was a leading suffragist at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. For her active involvement and service to the government, she was awarded the Croix of the French Legion of Honour in 1920.
Clara Dorothy Bewick Colby was a British-American lecturer, newspaper publisher and correspondent, women's rights activist, and suffragist leader. Born in England, she immigrated to the US, where she attended university and married the former American Civil War general, later Assistant United States Attorney General, Leonard Wright Colby. In 1883, she founded The Woman's Tribune in Beatrice, Nebraska, moving it three years later to Washington, D.C.; it became the country's leading women's suffrage publication. She was an advocate of peace and took part in the great peace conference at San Francisco during the exposition. She also spoke on behalf of the soldiers of the Spanish War. During the Spanish–American War (1898), she was officially appointed as war correspondent, the first woman to be so recognized.
Women at the Hague was an International Congress of Women conference held at The Hague, Netherlands in April 1915. It had over 1,100 delegates and it established an International Committee of Women for Permanent Peace (ICWPP) with Jane Addams as president. It led to the creation of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).
First Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance was held in 1902 in Washington D.C. to consider the feasibility of organizing an International Woman Suffrage Association.
Fourth Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance was held from 15 - 21 June 1908, at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
The Seventh Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance met in Budapest, Hungary, 15–21 June 1913. As had been the case with all the preceding International Woman Suffrage Alliance conferences, the location had been chosen to reflect the status of woman suffrage: a place where the prospects seemed favorable and liable to influence public sentiment by demonstrating that it was now a global movement. When it had been announced at the sixth congress that the next one would be held in the capital of Hungary, it was felt that the location seemed very remote, and there were concerns that Hungary did not have representative government. In fact, it proved to be one of the largest and most important conventions. Furthermore, the delegates stopped en route for mass meetings and public banquets in Berlin, Dresden, Prague and Vienna, spreading its influence ever further afield.
The Eighth Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance occurred June 6–12, 1920, in Geneva, Switzerland.
Eunice Guthrie Murray MBE was a Scottish suffrage campaigner, author and historian. She was a leading figure in the Women's Freedom League in Scotland. Murray was the only Scottish woman in the first UK general election open to women in 1918.
The Inter-Allied Women's Conference opened in Paris on 10 February 1919. It was convened parallel to the Paris Peace Conference to introduce women's issues to the peace process after the First World War. Leaders in the international women's suffrage movement had been denied the opportunity to participate in the official proceedings several times before being allowed to make a presentation before the Commission on International Labour Legislation. On 10 April, women were finally allowed to present a resolution to the League of Nations Commission. It covered the trafficking and sale of women and children, their political and suffrage status, and the transformation of education to include the human rights of all persons in each nation.
Eugénie Hamer was a Belgian journalist, writer and activist. Her father and brother served in the Belgian military, but she was a committed pacifist. Involved in literary and women's social reform activities, she became one of the founders of the Alliance Belge pour la Paix par l'Éducation in 1906. The organization was founded in the belief that education, political neutrality, and women's suffrage were necessary components to peace. She was a participant in the 18th Universal Peace Congress held in Stockholm in 1910, the First National Peace Congress of Belgium held in 1913, and the Hague Conference of the International Congress of Women held in the Netherlands in 1915. This led to the creation of the International Committee of Women for Permanent Peace, subsequently known as the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). Hamer co-founded the Belgian chapter of the WILPF that same year. During World War I, she volunteered as a nurse and raised funds to acquire medical supplies and create an ambulance service.
The 12th Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance was an international women's conference which took place in Istanbul, Turkey, in 18-25 April 1935. It was the 12th international conference arranged under the International Alliance of Women.
