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Founding
The League of Women Voters was founded on February 14, 1920, shortly before passage of the 19th amendment, to support women in the use of their right to vote. It began as the successor to the National American Women Suffrage Association (NAWSA), a federation of some of the state suffrage organizations.

A first step toward the LWV had been taken in 1909, when Emma Smith DeVoe proposed at the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) convention in Seattle that a separate organization be created to educate women on election processes and lobby for favorable legislation on women's issues. When her proposal was ignored, DeVoe founded the National Council of Women Voters in 1911. She recruited western suffragists and organizations to join the council. In its spirit, the League of Women Voters is a successor to the NCWV.

Ten years later, prior to the 1919 Convention of the NAWSA (in St. Louis, Missouri), Carrie Chapman Catt began negotiating with DeVoe to merge her organization with a new league that would be the successor to the NAWSA. Catt was concerned about DeVoe's reputation for divisiveness and abrasive political tactics in her leadership of the NCWV. Another organization which had been important in the fight for equal suffrage, the National Women's Party, was not included due to concerns about the militancy of the leader Alice Paul.

A motion was made at the 1919 NAWSA convention to merge NAWSA and NCWV into a successor, the National League of Women Voters. Although not all members of either organization were in favor of a merger, the merger was officially completed on January 6, 1920. For the first year the league operated as a committee of the NAWSA. The formal organization of the League was drafted at the 1920 Convention held in Chicago.

In her presidential address on March 24, 1919, at the above-mentioned NAWSA convention, Catt had said:

In subsequent years, due to the increasing influence of women in politics, the league has evolved a more inclusive mission, to "protect and expand voting rights and ensure everyone is represented in our democracy."

The organization
The League began as a federation of existing state Women's Suffrage Organizations. The state leagues organized the local leagues. By 1924, there were local leagues in 346 of 433 congressional districts. The issues to be addressed were chosen by delegates to the League's conventions, held annually at first and then biennially.

The first president was Maud Wood Park. Carrie Chapman Catt was named honorary chairman of the League instead of president because she insisted that it was for younger and fresher women to lead the new work. The League developed a reputation as an 'elitist' organization because it relied heavily on the social network of women's clubs. League members sought to influence politicians by developing expertise, educating the public, and using persuasion behind the scenes and within the system rather than using public demonstrations.

In early 1921, the League of Women Voters of New York reported an increase in the number of members after Governor Nathan L. Miller attached the League, calling it a "menace" to our form of government. The organization launched a state-wide campaign of education to inform "misguided individuals laboring under such misapprehensions."

In 1926, the New York League regional director Mrs. Charles L. Tiffany emphasized the League's non-partisan nature, saying that "The League of Women Voters is taking no part in any campaign. ... If any individual members of the league wish to take part in the campaign, they will do so as individuals and not as members of the league."

The Issues
The League framed its role within women's traditional social roles of housewife and homemaker, seeking legislation to protect and nurture families and their quality of life. One of the most important pieces of legislation that it sought was the Sheppard-Towner Act that would protect women and children by providing federal funding for maternity and childcare. This approach ultimately led to a rift with the National Women's Party, because the League feared that the Equal Rights Amendment proposed by the NWP would undermine protective legislation.

On October 17, 1929, Belle Sherwin, the president of the League of Women Voters, and Ruth Morgan of New York City headed a delegation to ask President Herbert Hoover to support the renewal of Federal aid to the States in maternity and infancy work.

At the 1929 convention of the League of Women Voters of New York, the members voted for a New York State prohibition enforcement act. They also voted to favor old age pensions and ask the Legislature to give women the right to do jury service, to permit physicians to give contraceptive information to married persons, and to extend the benefits of workmen's compensation for all occupational diseases.

Activities
"The League also set up classes to train volunteer teachers for citizenship schools. And the League organized institutes to study defects in our system of government, initiated "Know Your Town" surveys, candidate questionnaires and meetings, and nationwide get-out-the-vote campaigns activities. In 1928 the League sponsored "Meet the Candidates," the first national radio broadcast of a candidate forum. Voters service efforts remain a hallmark of the League's services to the electorate today and laid the foundation for the efforts that make up the League's education program - from candidate debates and candidate questionnaires produced by Leagues throughout the country, to the myriad projects funded through the League of Women Voters Education Fund, which was founded in 1957. (For more information, see the section titled, League of Women Voters Education Fund and Overseas Education Fund.)"

During the 1920's, the League of Women Voters of New York sent an annual questionnaire to candidates for local office, and published the answers in the publication "Information for Voters." In 1929, the questionnaire covered maintaining the 5 cent subway fare, creation of a permanent city planning board, immediate action on a sewage and waste disposal plant, unlimited building heights in certain districts, and reclassification of civil service employees to provide automatic salary increases.

In 1923, a special committee of the national League of Women Voters picked twelve women as the "greatest living American women." They were Jane Addams, Cecilia Beaux, Annie Jump Cannon, Carrie Chapman Catt, Anna Botsford Comstock, Minnie Maddern Fiske, Louise Homer, Julia Lathrop, Florence Rena Sabin, M. Carey Thomas, Martha Van Rensselaer, and Edith Wharton.

At the 1926 convention of the national League, Belle Sherwin, the League president, emphasized education in politics as the right road toward true democracy. Whether it is possible to develop in this country an education which will qualify citizens to be partners in government is a question to face squarely.

For many, education today is either remote and limited to a brief period or is highly specialized for vocational purposes. Education for active citizenship has hardly been tried. She went on to mention "the modest attempts of schools here and there to teach critical reading of the newspapers and other means of avoiding mob-mindedness." Prohibition and birth control were hot issues that year, but were not included in the subjects for study and legislation during the ensuing year.

In 1926, The New York League together with the Women's National Republican Club established information booths in seven department stores, explaining to women how to register to vote, and installed a voting machine at League headquarters to demonstrate how to vote. The League members explained literacy tests and requirements and hours for registration. A frequent question involved the status of an American woman married to an immigrant. The League also presented a series of pre-election talks, including a talk on "National and State Legislators," "The Judiciary," and "Machinery of Elections."

Organization
Membership fell from 100,000 in 1924 to 44,000 in 1934.

Organization
The structure of the League changed in the 1940s. Instead of being a federation of state leagues, it became an association of members, and in 1946 "National" was dropped from the name, leaving it just "The League of Women Voters." Also, the national program was shortened

The Carrie Chapman Catt Fund was established in 1947 to provide more education about democracy, becoming the Overseas Education Fund in 1961.

The 1950s
The 1950s was a period of rapid growth in League membership, with membership fluctuating between 120,000 and 150,000. In September 1953, the national board initiated a campaign against isolationism in foreign policy. League members asked members of Congress to back the United Nations, to liberalize international trade policy, and to restore funds to President Truman's Point Four Program of technical assistance and economic aid to underdeveloped countries. It also issued a twenty-two page handbook telling local leaders how to analyze problems in US foreign relations.

The 1990s
Membership levels dropped steadily throughout the 1990s.

2010-present
In 2002, the League supported the Help America Vote Act (with some reservations about the final compromise) and the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act.

In 2021, the League of Women Voters of Florida partnered with Voteriders to get word out to eligible voters about the changes made due to Floria Senate Bill 90, signed into law in May 2021. The Florida League also partnered with the Black Voters Matter Fund and the Florida Alliance for Retired Americans to file lawsuits against the changes. The trial court struck down multiple provisions of the law but the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay reinstating the restrictive law.

Voter Services Handbook






Impact on Issues
Impact on Issues is published every other year documenting LWVUS public policy positions, which were adopted by the biennial convention of the LWVUS. The publication is designed to help League members use the policy positions effectively at the national, state, local, and regional levels.

The document was published solely as a book until 1998. The contents of the 1998-2000, 2000-2002, and 2002-2004 versions were published online. From 2004 onward, the document has been published on the Web as a pdf.


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