This group resulted from the divisions in the women's rights movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It grew out of the New England Woman Suffrage Association, formed in 1868 to focus exclusively on obtaining the franchise. It was opposed to the policies of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, who broke with their abolitionist and Republican supporters, accusing them of emphasizing black civil rights at the expense of women's rights.

When Stanton and Anthony led the formation of the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869, the New England group reacted by creating the American Woman Suffrage Association (awsa) to work for the inclusion of women in the Fifteenth Amendment. Founded in Cleveland in November 1869, the awsa was led by such longtime abolitionists and women's rights advocates as Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe, and Thomas Wentworth Higginson. It accused the Stanton-Anthony group of diverting attention from the suffrage issue by scattering its efforts among broader social reforms. The awsa convinced the Republican party to include a reference to women's suffrage in its 1872 convention platform, although the party did not pursue the issue later.

Putting aside their differences, the American and National Woman Suffrage associations united in 1890, forming the National American Woman Suffrage Association (nawsa). It continued to seek the franchise, but it changed tactics, now arguing that giving women the right to vote would not be a threat to women's "separate sphere." With a boost from progressive reforms, changes in the workplace during World War I, and a final concerted drive, the nawsa succeeded in 1919; the Nineteenth Amendment took effect in time for the 1920 election.

See also National American Woman Suffrage Association; National Woman Suffrage Association; Suffrage.

The Reader's Companion to American History, Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, Editors, published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.