# History of Woman Suffrage/Volume 5/Foreword

Contents
THE NATIONAL AMERICAN WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION
FOREWORD
The National Woman Suffrage Association was organized in New York City, May 15, 1869, with Elizabeth Cady Stanton president and Susan B. Anthony chairman of executive committee. [History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II, page 400.] It held annual conventions for the next half century, always in Washington, D. C, until 1895, after-which date they were taken in alternate years to other cities, meeting in the national capital during the first session of each Congress. The object of the association from its beginning was to obtain an amendment to the Federal Constitution which would confer full, universal suffrage on the women of the United States, and its work for amending the constitutions of the States to enfranchise their women was undertaken as one means to achieve this main purpose. The American Woman Suffrage Association was organized in Cleveland, Ohio, Nov. 24, 1869, w i ln Henry Ward Beecher president and Lucy Stone chairman of executive committee, principally for action through the States, and it also held annual conventions. [Volume II, page 756.] In 1890 the two united in Washington under the name National American Woman Suffrage Association [Volume IV, page 164], and the work was continued by both methods. Full reports of conventions may be found in preceding volumes of the History of Woman Suffrage, the list ending in Volume IV with that of 1900. This convention was especially distinguished by the public celebration of the 80th birthday of Susan B. Anthony and her retirement from the presidency of tinassociation which she had helped to found and in which she had continuously held official position, and by the election of Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt as her successor.
​The assertion is frequently made that the enfranchisement of women was due to a natural evolution of public sentiment. A reading of the following chapters, which give the history of the work of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, will show how largely the creation of this sentiment was due to this organization to which all the State associations were auxiliary. It represented the organized movement during half a century to secure the vote for women — a struggle such as was never made by men for this right in any country in the world. It was the only large organization for this purpose that ever existed in the United States and its efforts never ceased in the more than fifty years. At each annual convention some advance was recorded. These chapters show that, while the principal object of the association was a Federal Amendment, it gave valuable assistance to every campaign for the amendment of State constitutions and that it was responsible for the granting of the Presidential franchise, which was so important a factor in gaining the final victory. The reports of its officers each year show the large amount of money raised and expended, the hundreds of thousands of letters written, the millions of pieces of literature circulated, the thousands of meetings held, the many workers in the field. The committee reports and the resolutions adopted show that all reforms vital to the welfare of women and children and many of a wider scope were included in the work of the association. The names of the speakers at the national conventions and at the hearings before the committees of Congress during all these years prove that this cause was championed by the leaders among the men and women of their generation. Such quotations from their speeches as space has permitted show that in eloquence, logic and strength they were unsurpassed and that their arguments were unanswerable.
If this volume contained only the first nineteen chapters tinreader could not fail to be convinced that principally to the efforts of the National American Woman Suffrage Association the women of the United States owe their enfranchisement, but it shows too that in the forty-eight auxiliary States they also fought their own hard battles.