The National Woman Suffrage Association (nwsa) was founded in May 1869 by Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and other women exasperated at the collapse of an Equal Rights Association convention they attended in New York City. That convention split when former abolitionists, such as Frederick Douglass, accused Anthony and Stanton of racism because they campaigned for George Francis Train, a Democratic candidate for governor of Kansas who opposed votes for African-Americans but favored women's suffrage. Many women delegates also felt that demands for women's suffrage should be put aside until African-Americans received the right to vote. Other feminists, including Stanton and Anthony, had wanted the Equal Rights Association to concentrate its efforts on women's issues and formed the nwsa for that purpose.
The nwsa dealt with many issues of interest to women besides suffrage, such as the unionization of women workers. In 1872, it supported Victoria Woodhull, the first woman candidate for president of the United States. In contrast, the American Woman Suffrage Association limited its efforts to securing the right to vote and tied itself closely to the Republican party.
After the 1872 election, the political differences between the two associations began to fade, but the acrimony was so great that they did not merge (becoming the National American Woman Suffrage Association) until 1890. Despite factionalism and changes in the political climate that both delayed the progress of the suffrage movement and undermined Radical Reconstruction, the nwsa set a precedent for women interested in organizing independently of male-dominated politics.
See also American Woman Suffrage Association; Anthony, Susan B.; Feminist Movement; National American Woman Suffrage Association; Stanton, Elizabeth Cady; Suffrage.
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