Notable Women of ISU: Carrie Chapman Catt

This is the first in a series of blog posts featuring notable women of ISU. To kick off this series, I am beginning with an obvious choice – Carrie Chapman Catt. Catt is known for her work in the women’s suffrage movement and is so notable that a campus building was named after her (Catt Hall). [It’s worth noting that in 1998 there was a controversy about the naming of the building, known as the September 29th Movement (collection RS 22/3/3), and a review committee was formed in response (RS 22/1/8).]

Without further adieu, here is the lady of the hour.

Carrie Chapman Catt’s graduation photo, 1880. University Photographs, RS 21/7/A.

Carrie Chapman Catt was born January 9, 1859, to Maria Clinton and Lucius Lane in Ripon, Wisconsin. Around 1865, the family moved to Charles City, Iowa. Catt then attended Iowa State College and graduated in 1880 at the top of her class.

During her time in Ames, she established military drills for women, became the first woman student to give an oration before a debating society, earned extra money as assistant to the librarian, and was a member of Pi Beta Phi.

Post-graduation, she became the high school principal in Mason City and then in 1883 the superintendent of Mason City Schools. While there, she met her first husband, Leo Chapman, editor of the Mason City Republican. They married in February 1885. After his death in 1886, she went to California and worked as a newspaper reporter before returning to Iowa to take on women’s suffrage.

Early on in her suffrage work, she ran into a classmate from Ames, George W. Catt. They were married in 1890. He supported his wife’s work both financially and personally until his death in October 1905.

Carrie Chapman Catt served as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association from 1900-1904 and from 1915 until women’s right to vote was attained (1920). In addition, she formed the International Woman Suffrage Alliance and served as president of that organization for many years. When women won the right to vote, Catt encouraged the formation of the League of Women Voters.

Throughout her life, Catt received a great deal of recognition for her work, including many awards such as the Chi Omega (1941), the Pictorial Review Award (1931), and induction into the Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame. She died at her home in New Rochelle, New York in 1947.

Brochure from a celebration of Catt and the 75th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, 1995. RS 21/7/3, Box 3, Folder 8

More information and materials related to Carrie Chapman Catt can be found here in Special Collections and University Archives in the Carrie Chapman Catt Papers. We also have other women’s collections, including the Woman Suffrage Collection. In addition, see this webpage for resources available online. Have a look, and stop by sometime!

Thanksgiving, Part 2

Since we already have several blog posts related to Thanksgiving items here in the Special Collections Department (available here and here), I had not intended to create a Thanksgiving blog post for this year.  However, I recently received a call from Iowa Public Radio asking me if I would like to speak on the Iowa Public Radio program Talk of Iowa.  I was one of three guests on the program last Wednesday morning, and I spoke about some items in our collections which are related to Thanksgiving.  I enjoyed being a part of the conversation, even though the hour’s program was far too short to share all of the recipes I had put together to speak about!

Did you enjoy last Thursday’s Thanksgiving meal?  Are you all ready to start planning for next year’s Thanksgiving?  If so, this is the post for you!  If not, hopefully you will find some of the recipes below interesting, and perhaps they will inspire you to remember them when planning for the 2013 Thanksgiving meal next fall.  Or you may even find a delightful holiday recipe to add some historical cuisine to your menu (holiday or otherwise)!

Below are some of the recipes I did not have a chance to talk about on last week’s radio program, including links to some recipes you can find online through Digital Collections:

The Suffrage Cook Book, published in 1915, was once owned by Carrie Chapman Catt (Iowa State graduate and suffragist).  The cook book contains a wide variety of recipes, including a nut turkey for Thanksgiving.  As the introduction explains:

“Now that we are entering upon an age of sane living it is important that home makers should be impressed with the fact that good health precedes all that is worth while in life, and that it starts in the kitchen; that the dining room is a greater social factor than the drawing room.”

What better introduction do we need to inspire us to create healthy recipes together in the kitchen?

The section under meats contains a chapter on “Nuts as a Substitute for Meat.”  The introduction to this chapter states that since the “soaring cost” of meat, many had been rationing or eliminating their use of meat.  However, as the chapter notes, nuts “contain more food value to the pound than almost any other food product known” and goes on to explain that peanuts have a significant amount of protein.

Interested in making a Nut Turkey (page 68) instead of the traditional turkey for Thanksgiving?  Below is the recipe from this interesting book – I recommend you take a look at it!  As the note found at the beginning of the cookbook states, the book includes notes and check marks made by Carrie Chapman Catt.  If you are not interested in the Nut Turkey, then peruse the digital version, and perhaps make a favorite of Catt’s instead!

Nut Turkey

One quart sifted bread crumbs

1 pint English walnuts (or any other kind of nuts “will go”)

1 cupful of Peanuts (“simply washed and dried”)

1 level tsp Sage

2 tsp Salt

1 T. Parsley

2 Raw eggs (not beaten)

“sufficient water to bind the mass together”

“Then form them into the shape of a turkey, with pieces of macaroni to form the leg bones.  Brush with a little butter and bake an hour in a slow oven and serve with drawn butter sauce.”

Another interesting cookbook which contains a turkey recipe (and this one for the actual bird!) is Mrs. Welch’s Cookbook.  Mary Welch was the wife of Iowa State’s first president, Adonijah Welch.  Mary Welch had many accomplishments in her own right, including helping start and acting as the first head the Department of Domestic Economy (now better known as Home Economics or Family and Consumer Sciences).  In addition to the recipes, the cookbook also contains explanations and experiments for learning the why of cooking.  For instance, the section on Soups, Meats, Poultry and Game tells the reader to thinly cut a piece of meat and then wash and boil it.  She explains the changes that are taking place to the meat, and why.  The recipes sometimes also contain references to this experiment at the beginning of the chapter in order to provide brief lessons within the recipe itself.

Mary B. Welch

Wondering how March Welch recommends making a turkey?  You can find the recipe online here on page 178-180.

Trying to figure out what to do with your turkey leftovers?  A recipe for turkey soup can be found here on page 154.

Interested in learning more about Mary Welch or Carrie Chapman Catt?  The University Archives also holds the papers of both.  The finding aid for the Mary B. (Mary Beaumont) Welch Papers can be found here, and the finding aid for the Carrie Chapman Catt Papers can be found here.

Women’s History Month: Online Collections

March is Women’s History Month, and today (March 8th) marks the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day (1911-2011).  As the International Women’s Day press release states, “International Women’s Day is a global celebration of the economic, political, and social achievements of women past, present, and future.”

The Special Collections Department here at Iowa State University holds numerous collections documenting the history of women here at Iowa State, throughout Iowa, the United States and sometimes even the world.  A listing of selected collections related to women can be found in our subject guide found online.

Ada Hayden taking a photograph.

In the last few years, we have put a number of items related to women’s history from our collections online.  One of these is a scrapbook from the Ada Hayden Papers which contains beautiful black and white photographs, including brief captions, of prairie scenes and flora in Iowa.  In addition to being an Iowa State graduate, Ada Hayden was also an Instructor and Assistant Professor (1910-1950) of botany for many years here at Iowa State, and later Curator of the Herbarium (1947-1950).  In addition to studying Iowa’s prairies and flora, she devoted herself to prairie preservation.  Iowa State’s Herbarium was named after Ada Hayden, and contains many specimens collected by her.  For more on the Ada Hayden Herbarium, please visit the herbarium’s website.  You may also recognize her name from Ada Hayden Heritage Park on the north side of Ames.  The finding aid for Hayden’s papers can be found here.

The collection of quilt historian and Ames alumna Mary Barton is also available online through Digital Collections.  The Fashion Plates Collection (1776-2003) contains plates of general fashion dating back to the 18th century and continuing through the 20th century.

Mary Welch’s cookbook and several suffrage cookbooks can be found through the Cookbooks link on the Digital Collection’s homepage.  Mary Welch was the wife of Iowa State’s first president, Adonijah Welch and was the organizer and head of the Department of Domestic Economy at Iowa State from 1875 to 1883.  In addition to this cookbook, the Special Collections Department also holds Mary Welch’s papers.  The finding aid to her papers can be found online here.  Her collection contains interesting writings and lectures from an influential Iowa State woman from the early part of Iowa State’s history.

The online suffrage cookbooks (the originals are housed here in the Special Collections Department) in the library’s Digital Collections are also are also fun to look through.  The “Woman Suffrage Cook Book, containing thoroughly tested and reliable recipes for cooking, directions for the care of the sick, and practical suggestions, contributed especially for this work”  was edited and published by Mrs. Hattie A. Burr in 1886.  In addition to the normal sections of a title page still present today, I was surprised to find on the title page Hattie’s street address in Boston (or at least that is what I am assuming the address refers to)!

Catt’s graduation image

The final online suffrage cookbook in our Digital Collections, “The Suffrage Cookbook, ” was compiled by Mrs. L.O. Kleber and published in 1915.  In addition to the information and recipes this particular book contains, it also has additional value (sometimes referred to as “intrinsic value“) in that it was owned by our own suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt (Iowa State graduate and president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association).  The book was once owned by Carrie Chapman Catt, and according to the note at the front of the book by her niece to Dr. Hilton [Helen LeBaron Hilton] “Aunt Carrie checked some of the recipes she liked and sometimes wrote figures on the side to show cost.  Her own favorite desserts were cranberry souffle and strawberry shortcake-biscuit style.”  An example of one of these checked recipes (Inexpensive Spice Cake!) can be found on page 124.  Pie for a Suffragist’s Doubting Husband (page 147) is also an interesting read.

Last year we celebrated the 90th anniversary of the 19th amendment, giving women the right to vote and for which Carrie Chapman Catt had worked towards for many years.  Ninety years ago this year, the 1921 Bomb (Iowa State’s yearbook) was dedicated to Carrie Chapman Catt:

Did ISU have anything to do with the 19th Amendment? Why yes it did!

Today, August 26th, marks the 90th anniversary of the 19th amendment becoming law, giving women in the United States the right to vote.  What might Iowa State have had to do with women gaining the right to vote back in 1920?  Carrie Chapman Catt graduated from Iowa State in 1880 at the top of her class.  Catt worked diligently for woman’s suffrage both in the United States and internationally, and was the president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) when the 19th amendment was passed.  In fact, she was president of NAWSA for many years and came back to the presidency in 1915 to reorganize and strengthen the association.  After the 19th amendment became law, she then helped organize the League of Women Voters.

Several archives hold the papers of Carrie Chapman Catt, including ISU and the Library of Congress.  Microfilmed versions of some of these collections are held in the library’s Media Center and can be found by searching the library’s catalog.  The Library of Congress also has some of her papers online.  We also have a collection of her papers, and the finding aid for her collection is online.  Below are some of the highlights from her collection here at ISU, which contains some materials from when she was a student here as well as when she was working for woman’s suffrage.

Pictured here are a couple images from Catt’s botany notebook, which contain careful notes and illustrations in her very neat handwriting.

In 1921, Catt became the first woman to deliver a commencement address at Iowa State.  The collection contains a newspaper article announcing Catt’s visit to Iowa State, and also a copy of her address which was published in The Alumnus.  The news clippings also reveal that Catt maintained ties to Iowa State, visiting her alma mater at least once during the fight for suffrage in 1917.

In addition to the materials in Catt’s Papers, we also have a number of artifacts which Catt once owned.  Most of these are suffrage buttons and pins, a few of which are pictured below.

If you would like to learn more about Carrie Chapman Catt, please visit our finding aid and the Carrie Chapman Catt Girlhood Home and Museum website, which also contains links to other collections of Carrie Chapman Catt materials and an interactive time line.  There are quite a number of online resources related to the suffrage movement, including a fun online scrapbook which contains articles, letters and editorials from The New York Times about the women who fought for and against suffrage here in the United States.

Women’s Suffrage and the 1920 Iowa State Fair

Margaret Dougherty and Blanche Kreiter, 1921 Champion 4H clothing demonstration

August 26th of this year, when the 19th amendment became law, marks the 90th anniversary of women’s right to vote.  What were Iowa women doing on August 26th, 1920?  Some were attending the Iowa State Fair!  August 26th was the second day of the 66th annual Iowa State Fair, which was held from August 25th through September 3rd in 1920.  Did fair goers in Iowa know about the passage of the 19th amendment when attending the fair?  I did not find any mention of women’s suffrage or the 19th amendment in the records I went through, but we can see a little bit of what young women were doing in 1920 at the State Fair, and in the years following the passage of the amendment, in the Iowa 4H Records (RS 16/3/4).  This collection includes the Iowa 4-H Girls’ Clubs Annual Reports.  (The finding aid/collection description for this collection is not yet online, but will be shortly.)  Perhaps more out of coincidence than anything else, the first annual report for Iowa girls’ clubs was produced the same year as the passage of the 19th amendment (1920).

1923 Clothing Garment Demonstration

4H, then as now, provides hands-on experiences to help young people reach their full potential and includes opportunities for youth to develop their leadership skills. In the early part of the 20th century 4H was a great way for young women to advance their leadership skills, and learn what they were capable of, in order to more fully take advantage of their newly won right to vote.  The 1920 Annual Report of 4-H Girls Club Work is also a wonderful window into the beginnings of 4H clubs.  According to the writer of the report, very few if any girls’ clubs existed in Iowa on April 1st, 1920, and those which did existed only on a temporary basis, mostly in the spring and summer.  The early 4H Girls’ Clubs in Iowa were divided into 5 different groups: canning, food study, meal preparation, garment making, and own your own room.

The 1920 Annual Report briefly mentions what the 4H girls did at the 1920 Iowa State Fair.  There were:

• 9 canning demonstrations
• 6 garment demonstrations
• 4 meal preparation demonstrations
• 5 food preparation demonstrations
• 6 Own Your Own Room Demonstrations

In addition, the annual report states that “A Boys’ and Girls’ club Pageant was put on one day of the Fair. The girls’ club department had five floats.  A float all in while labeled ‘The Queen of the Home’ headed the girls.  One of the mothers all in white sat on her throne.  The three girls all in white, the sunshine of the home, holding the reins.”  Even though this first annual report of 1920 does not contain photographs, our university photograph collection does contain an image of the Queen of the Home float, pictured  below.

The Iowa 4H Records also contain the historian books for Iowa 4H Girls’ Clubs.  The historians books begin in 1921 and contain more detailed information on 4H activities, including the Iowa State Fair.