A Monumental Impact on Women's Rights

By FRAN DESIMONE BECQUE, New York Alpha

Our Fraternity was 10 years old with about a dozen chapters in four states when CARRIE LANE (later Carrie Chapman Catt) became a member at Iowa Gamma. In 1880, she was valedictorian and the sole woman in her 18-member graduating class. Over the following seven decades, Carrie created a life of purpose and impact that still resonates with women today.

Did Carrie’s membership in our Fraternity inspire her life's work? Did it help spark her passion to become an advocate for women’s issues, notably suffrage? A recent donation to the archives from a 1960s initiate included the sentiment, “My Pi Phi experience helped shape the woman I am today.” I like to think that Carrie might have felt something similar.

CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT, as shown in the June 1916 issue of The Arrow, spoke for women's suffrage in every state of the Union except South Carolina and Florida. She also lectured abroad in several countries, including England, Holland and Hungary.

After working as a teacher and principal and becoming the first female superintendent of public schools in Mason City, Iowa, Carrie married Leo Chapman and moved to San Francisco. Unexpectedly widowed a year after her wedding, Carrie stayed in California and began writing a newspaper column about women's political issues as San Francisco's first female reporter. Carrie remarried in 1890, and her new husband encouraged her longstanding interest and involvement in the women's suffrage movement. She embarked on a public speaking career, discussing women's issues in her oratories — likely inspiring other women to action.

Carrie utilized her Fraternity connections to advance her suffrage efforts, networking with Pi Phi sisters before "networking" was a term. In 1887, she wrote to “Sister Ile,” an Iowa Beta at Simpson College, offering to speak in Indianola. In 1889, Iowa Epsilon members attended another of Carrie’s lectures. The following year, she spoke at the 1890 Galesburg Convention. Searches of The Arrow include many mentions of her speaking at Pi Phi meetings or welcoming members to her public engagements. She also helped establish the New York City Alumnae Club and was a loyal member.

From 1900 to 1904, Carrie was President of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and is given credit for making the 19th Amendment a reality. From 1915 to 1920, she served a second term as president and then helped found the League of Women Voters when NAWSA was dissolved in 1920.

Carrie was the keynote speaker at the 1924 Eastern Conference of Pi Beta Phi in Washington, D.C., when the portrait of Vermont Beta and First Lady GRACE GOODHUE COOLIDGE was given to the nation. She was the first fraternity woman honored with Chi Omega’s National Achievement Award gold medal, which she received from her friend, Eleanor Roosevelt. Grand President AMY BURNHAM ONKEN, Illinois Epsilon, attended the award presentation.

She remained deeply loyal to her chapter throughout her life, loaning Iowa Gamma money after a fire and then cancelling the debt. She answered a letter inviting her to attend the 1946 Swampscott Convention stating, “…I find Pi Beta Phis everywhere. They are all intelligent, ambitious and filled with plans for making the world better. I am proud of them, although most of them I have never met.” At this same convention, Pi Phi designated January 9 — Carrie's birthday — as Chapter Loyalty Day in recognition of the example she set in her abiding fidelity to her chapter.