Iowa State alumnus Carrie Chapman Catt — known as one of the nation’s foremost women’s suffragist — is falling under criticism for making racist and xenophobic remarks during her crusade for gender equality.

The controversy has been heightened by recent Iowa State Daily letters to the editor and an article in UHURU, an African-American newsletter on campus.

Iowa State English Professor Joe Geha’s letter to the editor, which appeared in the Oct. 25 Daily, said he felt “we haven’t been given the whole history here.” Geha said a Catt speech, “America for Americans,” was against immigration.

Benjamin Glispie, a senior in management, said in an Oct. 24 letter to the editor that after studying Catt’s life on his own, he concluded Catt was “not only an out-right racist, she is also a classist and a nationalist.”

Published works cited

In 1894, at the age of 35, Catt gave a speech at a suffrage meeting in Iowa called, “Danger to Our Government.” In her opening remarks, Catt said, “This government is menaced with a great danger … that danger lies in the votes possessed by the males in the slums of the cities, and the ignorant foreign vote which was sought to be brought up by each party, to make political success … There is but one way to avert the danger: Cut off the vote of the slums and give to woman …”

In her book, Objections to the Federal Amendment, Catt said, “White supremacy will be strengthened, not weakened, by woman suffrage … If the South really wants white supremacy, it will urge the enfranchisement of women.”

In response to the Dawes Act, the federal law that granted citizenship to Native Americans, Catt said no insult to women could compare with “that of the American government which lifted out of savagery, half-barbarous Indians and made them the political rulers over the college-bred, moral, intelligent women citizens.”

Challenges Hall name

With few public objections and almost no mention of Catt’s allegedly racist and xenophobic beliefs, ISU’s Old Botany Hall was renamed Carrie Chapman Catt Hall during the week of Oct. 1-6. The week was set aside to commemorate Catt and the 75th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote.

Celia Naylor-Ojurongbe, who took part in the planning and organizing of the Carrie Chapman Catt Hall dedication questioned whether the hall should bear Catt’s name.

“… in light of the fact that the recruitment and retention of people of color whether they be faculty, staff or students has become an important issue, and in light of the fact that there is a diversity requirement that was just passed, and in light of the fact that a number of African American faculty and staff have recently left this university, it is ironic to me that this building was renamed for Carrie Chapman Catt.”

Naylor-Ojurongbe said she was disappointed the racism issue didn’t surface during the dedication week. The planning committee decided racism would be discussed during the week, but, Naylor-Ojurongbe said, mention of the issue was at best brief.

“There was one panel that was supposed to address race, ethnicity and gender in the suffrage movement, and that didn’t happen,” she said.

Elizabeth Hoffman, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, said organizers were aware of the controversy surrounding some of Catt’s statements.

“We really wanted racism to be more of an issue than it was. Clearly it wasn’t discussed enough,” she said. But, “the focus of the Chautauqua Tent really was a celebration of 75 years of suffrage, not Catt’s motives.”

The Chautauqua Tent, placed just south of Catt Hall, hosted several programs and panel discussions during the week.

Racism did come up during the Meeting of the Minds program.

During the discussion, Naylor-Ojurongbe said, Jane Cox, an ISU associate professor of English who routinely portrays Catt, defended Catt with a dictionary definition of racism without addressing racism’s “subtleties and ranges.”

Naylor-Ojurongbe said because Cox has researched and portrayed Catt, “it was as if this expert is telling us this so we should believe it.”

“People say that she [Catt] is a product of her time, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we excuse the fact that she may or may not have been a racist,” she said. “There were certainly people during her time who were not racist, who were of European descent and who were not racist.”

Cox responds

Cox said it is important for those remembering Catt to “not just read one speech or quote, just one sentence, but to read from a lifetime of her work. Each speech that she gave needs to be looked at as to when it was given, the circumstance under which it was given, and the reason it was given.”

The three major charges against Catt are that she was a xenophobe, a racist and that she feared Native Americans.

Cox said Catt was in high school during the American military’s conflicts with Native Americans. She said newspapers only reported the soldiers’ accounts of the battles.

“The only way she had to educate herself was through the newspaper,” Cox said of Catt. “She probably wasn’t fair with what she said of the Native Americans in her early life. She spoke from fear and the unknown.”

Explaining Catt’s mistrust of immigrants Cox said, “Carrie did believe that immigrants were to be mistrusted. Carrie did feel very strongly that it was not fair that someone coming to this country who could not speak the language, could not read a newspaper, that that individual could be allowed to participate in the country’s democracy.”

Women in the suffrage movement didn’t have any direct political power, so one of their strategies was to implore logic when talking to men, Cox said.

“You could look at that as saying she hated immigrants, or you could also look at that as saying she was trying to persuade by logic,” she said.

Catt did change her mind about immigrants as she grew older, Cox said. “She could not help but change because she began to travel.” But Cox admitted that traveling to other countries doesn’t automatically change attitudes.

Cox said Catt’s allegedly racist comments may have been a product of desperation.

She said many historians believe if the 19th Amendment hadn’t been ratified during Catt’s time, “it would not have been [ratified] until after the Second World War when integration started. I believe they [women] felt they had to go against their own principles in order to win something they felt at the time would be for the greater good.”

The suffrage movement needed the approval of at least a few of the Southern states to get the 19th Amendment passed. This may explain, in part, Catt’s controversial remarks, Cox said.

“Carrie went to the South … She made speeches directed towards southern men to try to persuade them to support women’s suffrage,” Cox said.

Cox said southern newspapers considered Catt “too good a friend to the Negroes,” a label detrimental to Catt’s efforts to pick up southern support. Catt responded, Cox said, with a news release condemning interracial marriages.

Officials push awareness

Naylor-Ojurongbe said people must educate themselves before reaching a conclusion about Catt.

“I think people need to read as much as possible about this, because the only way for you to make a decision or to figure out whether or not Carrie Chapman Catt is a racist … is to read what she has written as well as what has been written about her. History is about interpretation,” she said. “One person can read a statement and have very different views from another person reading the same statement.”

ISU President Martin Jischke agreed. “I think that there are varying interpretations on Catt’s opinions on issues.”

Doubting change

Naylor-Ojurongbe said despite recent outcries, changes are unlikely.

“I don’t believe they are going to rename the building, because people have contributed to it specifically because it is being named for [Catt],” Naylor-Ojurongbe said. “I just wish some of these discussions would have gone on beforehand, and if they did, it would be very telling if … they still decided to name the building after Catt.”