History of the League

League of Women Voters^®
of Los Alamos

The League of Women Voters of the United States

In her address to the National American Woman Suffrage Association's (NAWSA) 50th convention in St. Louis, Missouri, 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." 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 the 19th amendment to the Constitution was ratified - the League was 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?"
See more at League History from the League of Women Voters of the US.

The League of Women Voters of Los Alamos

Los Alamos formed a provisional League in 1947, and its members registered voters for the first Town Council elections held in Los Alamos. It became a regular League in the following year. It was one of three local Leagues in existence at the time that the state League of Women Voters of New Mexico was formed in October 1949, and has continued ever since.
Download our Local Program Highlights.

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