{"id":1338,"date":"2019-02-12T09:14:36","date_gmt":"2019-02-12T09:14:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/?p=1338"},"modified":"2020-02-20T16:27:33","modified_gmt":"2020-02-20T16:27:33","slug":"using-personal-sources-bonds-of-friendship-in-the-womens-suffrage-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/?p=1338","title":{"rendered":"Using Personal Sources: Bonds of friendship in the women\u2019s suffrage campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hannah Moase, a second year History student at the University of Portsmouth, has written the following blog entry on a letter sent by women\u2019s suffrage campaigner Carrie Chapman Catt for the Introduction to Historical Research module. Hannah reveals how the letter provides us with an insight into the important bonds of friendship that existed between the suffrage campaigners of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The module is co-ordinated by Dr Maria Cannon, Lecturer in Early Modern History at Portsmouth.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carrie Chapman Catt is well known for the huge part she played in the women’s suffrage movement in America and other parts of the world due to her being one of the founders and the first president of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance. [1] This blog will focus on a letter sent by Catt to Dr Marion Edwards Park regarding the recent death of Dr Martha Carey Thomas, who was a fellow leading member of the National American Woman Suffrage Association along with Catt. This blog post shows how personal letters like this can give historians an insight into the more emotional, private thoughts and relationships of well-known, important figures such as Catt. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Carrie Chapman Catt. Image taken from Wikipedia https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Carrie_Chapman_Catt<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Mariam Dobson argues\nthat personal letters allow historians to have an insight into the \u201craw\nexperiences and emotions of actors in the past\u201d and this can be seen with Catt\u2019s\nletter. [2] This letter is written to Dr Marion Park who succeeded Dr Thomas as\nthe president of Bryn Mawr College. In the letter Carrie mentions how she is\n\u201cunacquainted with the family of Dr Thomas\u201d and that is why she is writing to\nPark regarding her passing, as she considers her a close colleague to Dr Thomas\nwith her being the successor to the presidency. [3] Although Catt\u2019s letter is\nwritten in a formal tone there are feelings of sadness and admiration towards\nDr Thomas running throughout it. This can be seen at the beginning of the\nletter when Catt explains she is writing it because she \u201cwants to express to\nsomeone\u201d her \u201csincere regret at her passing\u201d and she mentions the \u201cadmiration\u201d\nshe had for Dr Thomas\u2019 work. [4] The word \u201csomeone\u201d suggests that she was not\nwholly concerned with who the recipient of the letter was, she just wanted the\nopportunity to express her feelings regarding Dr Thomas and she felt a letter\nto one of her colleagues was a good platform to express these emotions. [5] This\nfurther supports Dobson\u2019s argument that letters were used as a platform for\npeople to express their emotions. [6] This shows how letters can be useful to\nhistorians, as they allow them a window into the emotions and private thoughts\nof the person being studied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is also a feeling\nof regret from Catt in this letter because she did not get to express these\nfeelings of admiration to Dr Thomas herself before she died. At the end of the\nletter Catt explains how \u201cseveral times\u201d she meant to write to Dr Thomas and\n\u201cexpress her own personal appreciation\u201d. [7] However, she never got around to it\nbefore her death because of how busy she was writing letters to strangers who\nwould ask her for \u201cinformation, advice or favours\u201d. [8] This gives historians\nan insight into how busy Catt was in her everyday life and to the other types\nof correspondence she was constantly writing. This shows how a personal letter\nlike this can be useful to historians. As Lindsey Dodd argues, letters give us\nan understanding of the everyday lives and work of \u201cexceptional people who led\nexceptional lives\u201d. [9] This letter shows historians the extent of the impact\nthat Catt had on people. Catt is writing this letter in 1935, fifteen years\nafter suffrage has been granted to the women of America. [10] Catt was still\nreceiving countless letters from strangers many years later seeking her\nguidance and this can be used as evidence to show just how much of an impact\nshe had as a lead figure in the fight for women’s suffrage. [11] Kevin Amidon and\nLeila Rupp explain Catt\u2019s involvement in international women\u2019s political\nactivity. [12] Amidon shows that after 1920 Catt continued to support women\u2019s\nsuffrage internationally. [13] Catt\u2019s important role in international women\u2019s\nmovements would explain why she still was receiving so many letters after 1920.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This letter also gives\nhistorians a contemporary view of the types of suffrage work that took place in\nAmerica and its impacts. In the letter, Catt says how she feels Dr Thomas\u2019 work\nas a leader of the Collegiate Equal Suffrage League made \u201cit into a great,\nstrong movement\u201d. [14] She also explains how the \u201cprofitable results\u201d from her\nwork were not felt until \u201cyears later\u201d. [15] This gives historians evidence\nthat for leaders of suffrage movements, seeing results and the impact of their\nwork was often a slow process. Katherine Adams and Michael Kenne explain that\nthe women fighting for suffrage often had a lot of setbacks in achieving their\ngoals and they argue that during this period the women’s suffrage campaign was\nseen as an example that political rights cannot be achieved without \u201cinsistent\nefforts to obtain it\u201d. [16] Margaretta Jolley reveals how letters can be seen\nas  \u201ca staple of any political movement,\u201d\nand this demonstrates that even though this source is of a personal nature,\nhistorians can still pull information from it regarding the political movement\nand learn contemporary views of the campaign from a figure who played a key\nrole. [17]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It must be mentioned\nthere are limitations to using personal letters as primary sources. For\nexample, they only give us a one-sided view of an event, topic or person. The\nintended audience can also be an issue when looking at personal letters. Dobson\nargues that sometimes a \u201cletter\u2019s apparently personal nature can be rather\ndeceptive\u201d and this can be seen with Catt\u2019s letter. [18] Although it is a\npersonal letter in which Catt reveals her emotions of sadness and regret, as\nwell as her opinion regarding Dr Thomas, at the end of the letter she says, \u201cI\nwish to express to Bryn Mawr, through you\u201d. [19] This suggests that although\nthe letter was sent to Dr Park, it was not just aimed at her and Catt wants to\nexpress her thoughts to the whole college. This should be considered by\nhistorians looking at this source as the intended audience of this letter could\nbe argued to affect how true the emotions and views expressed in the letter\nare. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This blog has shown that there are very useful pieces of information that historians can pull out of personal letters. Catt\u2019s letter is an example of how a personal letter can allow historians an insight into the private thoughts, emotions and everyday life of the author, and that this information can be used by historians to gain a broader picture of contemporary views of an event, period or person. If used alongside other sources, personal letters allow historians to get a more comprehensive view of the topic being studied and their usefulness should not be underrated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notes<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[1] Trisha Franzen, Anna\nHoward Shaw: The Work of Woman Suffrage<\/em> (Chicago: University of Illinois\nPress, 2014), 89.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2] Miriam Dobson,\n\u201cLetters\u201d, in Reading Primary Sources: The Interpretation of Texts from\nNineteenth and Twentieth Century History<\/em> ed. Miriam Dobson and Benjamin\nZiemann. (Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2009), 60.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3] \u201cCarrie Chapman\nCatt\u2019s letter to Marion Edwards Park regarding the death of Dr. Thomas\u201d\n(December 9, 1935) http:\/\/www.genderidentityandsocialchange.amdigital.co.uk\/Documents\/SearchDetails\/BMC_M15_CattCarrieChapman_07<\/a>,\nlast accessed 2 November 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4] Ibid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[5] Ibid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[6] Dobson, Reading<\/em>,\n60.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[7] \u201cCatt\u2019s letter\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[8] Ibid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[9] Lindsey Dodd, \u201dSmall\nfish, big pond: using a single oral history narrative to reveal broader social\nchange\u201d, in Memory and History: Understanding Memory as Source and Subject<\/em>\ned. Joan Tumblety. (Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2013), 39.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[10] Susan Goodier and\nKaren Pastorello, Women Will Vote: Winning Suffrage in New York State<\/em>\n(New York: Cornell University Press, 2017), 13.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[11] Franzens, Anna<\/em>,\n90.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[12] Kevin S. Amidon,\n\u201dCarrie Chapman Catt and the Evolutionary Politics of Sex and Race, 1885-1940,\u201d\nJournal of the History of Ideas<\/em> 68, no. 2 (2007): 307; Leila J. Rupp,\n\u201cConstructing Internationalism: The Case of Transnational Women\u2019s\norganizations, 1888-1945,” The American Historical Review<\/em> 99, no. 5\n(1994): 1576.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[13] Amidon, Carrie<\/em>,\n307.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[14] \u201cCatt\u2019s letter\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[15] Ibid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[16] Katherine H. Adams\nand Michael L. Keene, Alice Paul and the American Suffrage Campaign<\/em>\n(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008), 154.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[17] Margaretta Jolley,\nIn Love and Struggle: Letters in Contemporary Feminism<\/em> (New York:\nColumbia University Press, 2008), 2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[18] Dobson, Reading<\/em>,\n57.\n\n[19] \u201cCatt\u2019s letter\u201d.\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hannah Moase, a second year History student at the University of Portsmouth, has written the following blog entry on a letter sent by women\u2019s suffrage campaigner Carrie Chapman Catt for the Introduction to Historical Research module. Hannah reveals how the letter provides us with an insight into the important bonds of friendship that existed between the suffrage campaigners of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The module is co-ordinated by Dr Maria Cannon, Lecturer in Early Modern History at Portsmouth. Carrie Chapman Catt is well known for the huge part she played in the women’s suffrage movement in America and other parts of the world due to her being one of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1341,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[420,416,417,418,419,199,415],"class_list":["post-1338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-learning_in_focus","tag-america","tag-carrie-chapman-catt","tag-international-womens-suffrage-alliance","tag-marion-edwards-park","tag-martha-carey-thomas","tag-personal-sources","tag-womens-suffrage"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/letter-from-Catt-to-Schwimmer-1913-e1549915117304.jpg?fit=620%2C300&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p91PlX-lA","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1338"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1340,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1338\/revisions\/1340"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}