Talk:Carrie Chapman Catt
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This article makes no mention of the reason why Chapman Catt is controversial: her outspoken racism. She said that "White supremacy will be strengthened, not weakened, by woman suffrage." She also said nasty things about Native Americans. It is important that these issues be discussed. —Sesel 01:28, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
- add what you know to the article. Kingturtle 01:30, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
On 2 Nov 06 I performed a complete upgrade of the accompanying article by replacing the previous text with a brief biographical note written for another purpose by Professor Robert Booth Fowler of the University of Wisconsin. Prof. Fowler is the leading authority on the life of Catt and consented to the use of this material. -- Nate Levin
One example of the laziness of this Wikipedia contribution: Carrie Chapman Catt promised President Wilson that the entire Suffrage movement would support the war (WWI). To suggest that she was simply a big peace activist is assinine. This article must be developed or deleted. -- Jeanmarie Simpson
Having spent considerable time studying Catt, I have no doubt that she was sincere in her anti-war beliefs. However, she was a supreme pragmatist and--I believe correctly--concluded that failing to fall into line behind the prevailing pro-war sentiment would have harmed NAWSA and the suffrage cause. Also, she was assiduously courting Wilson, and this too was probably sound strategy from a pragmatic point of view. It is notable that she spent much of the 1920s and 30s in antiwar activism, but with tragically ineffective results. -- Nate Levin (10 Nov 06)
[edit] This article is terrible.
This article needs serious clean-up, not only because it's terribly formatted and the references are screwy, but also because it's full of POV and weasel words. I'll remove the POV and weasel words as best I can. Jolb 01:37, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't feel this is an improvement over Prof. Fowler's text, but at least this is better than the article as it existed prior to Nov. 2006. In my edit today, 16 Mar 2007, I removed a sentence that seemed out of place.--Nate Levin
