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League of Women Voters History

LEARN MORE about the history of women's suffrage and the League of Women Voters.

One Woman One Vote
Not for Ourselves Alone
The Woman's Bible
Biographies of Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Iron Jawed Angels

CFO SINK HONORS LWV 90th ANNIVERSARY
During the March 23 meeting of the Florida Cabinet, CFO Alex Sink sponsored a resolution honoring the 90th anniversary of the League of Women Voters.
“This year marks the 90th anniversary of the League of Women Voters and the historic passage of the 19th amendment,” Sink said. “I commend the dedicated members of the League for everything they’ve done to enable generations of women to shape our great democracy. The work the League does to increase voter turnout and educate voters on the issues is invaluable, and Florida – and the nation – is a better place because of their efforts."

A career and a movement, summed up in one word
Ellen Goodman The Boston Globe December 25, 2090

My word: Women have Harry Burn to thank
By Ann Hellmuth
OrlandoSentinel.com

Women's Equality Day, AUGUST 26
The day women got the right to vote
How much do you know?

• Born out of the women's suffrage movement that secured the right to vote for women, the League of Women Voters was founded in 1920. For over 80 years now, the League's hallmark has been its process of researching and studying before adopting a position on national, state or local issues. This thorough way of forging positions has made the League a credible force.
• When League founder Carrie Chapman Catt, a feminist who had been a dynamic leader in the suffragist movement, first wrote of how she envisioned the League she stated, " Everybody counts in applying democracy. And there will never be a true democracy until every responsible and law-abiding adult in it, without regard to race, sex, color or creed has his or her own inalienable and unpurchasable voice in government."
• Helping to "make the general welfare" was the primary agenda of the newly formed League. Agenda items critical to the independence of women included support for collective bargaining, child labor laws, minimum wage, a joint federal-state employment service, compulsory education, and equal opportunity for women in government and industry. Many of these items were enacted into laws that are still in force today. They have been part of American life for so many years most of us take them for granted. For over 80 years, the League has arduously struggled for legislation that improves the quality of life for all persons.
• The League used its grassroots mobilizing and citizen education skills in backing legislation for developing the Tennessee river basin as the site of a publicly owned power facility. It was the beginning of the League's involvement in environmental concerns. In 1933, Congress, at the request of President Franklin Roosevelt, established the Tennessee Valley Authority.
• Since the 1930's, the League of Women Voters has built a sequence of broad national positions and expanded its concept of grassroots organizing and citizen advocacy into the areas of world peace, civil and human rights. Not long after its founding, the League worked for U.S. membership in the League of Nations, the predecessor to the United Nations, and in the World Court. It mobilized support for global disarmament.
• The League's campaign to uphold civil rights and civil liberties included work to protect the right to individual privacy and an insistence that the government has no right to intrude into certain areas of citizen's lives. During the McCarthy period of the 1950s, this belief inspired the League of Women Voters of the United States to sponsor the "Freedom Agenda" – a nation-wide program of community education and discussion about civil liberties.
• Civil and human rights issues were embraced by the League in the 1960s and 1970s. The League studied the problems of poverty and discrimination, particularly unemployment, underemployment and inequities in public school education. As a result of a two-year study on these issues, the League built a foundation of support for equal access to education, racial integration in schools, fair employment and fair housing.
• The 1970s was the decade in which the League overwhelmingly supported ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. The League viewed "equal rights for all regardless of sex" as a fundamental elaboration of its long-term support for equal opportunity in education, employment and housing. The League was on the forefront of ERA ratification efforts at the state and national levels.
• In the 1970s, the League of Women Voters of the United States began sponsoring televised Presidential debates.
• In the 1980s, the League affirmed the constitutional right of privacy of the individual to make reproductive choices. In the spring of 1983, the League successfully pressed for the defeat of a constitutional amendment that would have overturned Roe V. Wade.
• League worked tirelessly and successfully in the 1990s for the passage of the National Voter Registration Act, or "motor voter", as a means of registering more Americans, simplifying voter registration procedures in the states and reshaping government's role in the registration process.
• In the 2000s, the League successfully secured campaign finance reforms intended to curb the influence of special interests; ensure fair competition by setting spending limits; and closing "soft money" loopholes so that large, unregulated contributions would not be used to circumvent existing campaign laws.
• Following the Presidential election of 2000, League became more visible in the area of election administration reform. Ensuring that all eligible citizens have the right to cast their votes and that those votes are properly counted continues to be one of the top priorities of the League of Women Voters.

The League continues to work hard to make democracy work as we mobilize more Americans to take part in the country's electoral and policy making process. We face the future remembering the words of League founder Carrie Chapman Catt, who said "…no chance, no destiny, no fate can circumvent or hinder or control the firm resolve of a determined soul."

History of Local league

The League of Women Voters of Florida was established in 1939. The first program of work included:

1. Survey of state and county school systems
2. Study of state and local government
3. Foreign policy of the United States.

The Winter Park League was one of the first three local Leagues that established the League of Women Voters of Florida. It soon became the Winter Park/Orlando League, and the name was changed to the League of Women Voters of Orange County in the ‘60s.

A member of the Winter Park/Orlando was responsible for initiating the League’s first legislative impact, which occurred during a special session in 1945 addressing reapportionment. This was best described in “The First Ten Years are the Hardest”, a paper by Mrs. Maxine Baker. “This special session of the legislature in 1945 was the first one to be made vividly aware of the existence of the League of Women Voters. Heretofore, only a few legislators had received letters or been interviewed by League members. But, on this hot July of 1945, each legislator found on his desk a copy of a long poem addressed to him on the subject of reapportionment. The author of the poem, Mrs. Charles (Helen Aubrey) Pratt of the Winter Park-Orlando League, was introduced from the rostrum by President of the Senate, Walter Rose. Many Florida newspapers reprinted Mrs. Pratt’s poem and carried League-written letters to the editor.

“The League, however, was not content with merely urging the lawmakers to do their duty. Mrs. William (Ethel Knott) Melcher, state League president, spent countless hours actually working out an equitable plan for senatorial redistricting, which was proposed for consideration. Although the Legislature, after some fifty days of battling, adopted an unsatisfactory compromise and wearily adjourned, they had at least fulfilled the letter, if not the spirit, of the law requiring reapportionment, which was more than had been done in twenty years.”

Seven members from Orange County have served as president of the League of Women Voters of Florida. The first League member elected to the Florida Legislature was Beth Johnson, Orlando, who served in both the Florida House of Representatives and the Florida Senate.