National History
In her address to the 50th convention of the
National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), President Carrie Chapman Catt proposed the creation of a “league of women voters to finish the fight and aid in the reconstruction of the nation.” The League of Women Voters was formed within the NAWSA, composed of the organizations in the states where suffrage had already been attained. The next year, on February 14, 1920 – six months before ratification of the 19th amendment to the Constitution - the League formally organized in Chicago as the national League of Women Voters. Catt described the purpose of the new organization:
The League of Women Voters is not to dissolve any present organization but to unite all existing organizations of women who believe in its principles. It is not to lure women from partisanship but to combine them in an effort for legislation which will protect coming movements, which we cannot even foretell, from suffering the untoward conditions which have hindered for so long the coming of equal suffrage. Are the women of the United States big enough to see their opportunity?
Maud Wood Park became the first national president of the League and thus the first League leader to rise to the challenge. She had steered the women’s suffrage amendment through Congress in the last two years before ratification and liked nothing better than legislative work. From the very beginning, however, it was apparent that the legislative goals of the League were not exclusively focused on women’s issues and that citizen education aimed at all the electorate was in order.
Since its inception, the League has helped millions of women and men become informed participants in government. In fact, the first league convention voted 69 separate items as statements of principle and recommendations for legislation. Among them were protection for women and children, right of working women, food supply and demand, social hygiene, the legal status of women, and American citizenship. The League’s first major national legislative success was the passage of the Sheppard-Towner Act providing federal aid for maternal and childcare programs. In the 1930s, League members worked successfully for enactment of the Social Security and Food and Drug Acts. Due at least in part to League efforts, legislation passed in 1938 and 1940 removed hundreds of federal jobs from the spoils system and placed them under Civil Service.
During the postwar period, the League helped lead the effort to establish the United Nations and to ensure U.S. Participation. The League was one of the first organizations in the country officially recognized by the United Nations as a non-governmental organization. It still maintains official observer status today.
Read more about League history
Our Local League
The
League of Women Voters of Williamsburg Area began in 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Cold War and Space Race, when a group of about 25 inspired women held a pre-organizational meeting for the proposed League of Women Voters of Williamsburg-James City County in Bruton Parish House Hall. The minutes of this meeting listed the women by their husbands’ names. Poll taxes were still in effect in Williamsburg (The League changed its name to LWV-Williamsburg Area in 1971).
The state League at first refused to recognize the chapter because five of these women were African American - including Phyllis Belden, Bobbye Alexander (1924-2019), and educator Clara Byrd Baker (1886-1979) for whom an area elementary school is named. At that time, there were no racially integrated local Leagues in Virginia. Not to be deterred, the women persisted, and the state League finally agreed—but only if white women served as officers. The Williamsburg women again resisted. The Virginia state League finally backed down, making the Williamsburg League the first integrated League in Virginia, recognizing us as a “provisional local League” on December 9, 1962.
The first Williamsburg Area newsletter came out on January 1, 1963. Our first general membership meeting took place on January 8, 1963, and monthly meetings occurred thereafter every second Tuesday. Our first “Annual Meeting” was on April 20, 1963. After a period as a “provisional local League,” the LWVUS National Board voted to recognize us as an official local League on March 17, 1965. The Voter Services chair during those early years was Clara Byrd Baker, a teacher at Bruton Heights school for many years, and one of the first woman in Williamsburg to register to vote – and vote – in 1920.