Because Democracy Is Not A Spectator Sport

LWV History - LOCAL AND NATIONAL

LOCAL LEAGUES IN THE
RIVERTOWNS OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY

History.  The earliest leagues formed by municipalities on the lower Hudson River were stand-alone entities, focused on issues relating to their own communities. 

The Yonkers League first met in 1924, Hastings in 1935 and Ardsley in 1937.  Later there were thriving leagues in Dobbs Ferry, Irvington, Greenburgh, and Tarrytown. 

The Yonkers League was active for 60 years, then disbanded in the mid-1980’s.  Responding to a letter written sometime in the ’70’s, questioning the League’s membership and political affiliation, the editor of the Herald Statesman replied:  “The Yonkers League claims 150 paid and active members, but does not record political affiliation.  The League meets monthly in duplicate sessions, one in the afternoon and one in the evening for the convenience of members, and has study groups which report to the membership on particular issues, ultimately resulting in a League position on the matter.  League membership is open to men as well as women.”

The Hastings League’s first meeting was in May 1935.  Topics discussed were the legal status of women, fair utility rates, tax reduction and housing.  In the following decades members supported local government reform (Council/Manager, creation of a Senior Outreach department) and funding for a new public library.  The Hastings LWV remained active for 65 years, absorbing members from disbanded Westchester leagues.

Dobbs Ferry’s League numbered over 100 members by 1957. It hosted forums on village planning and merger of the Hastings, Irvington and Dobbs Ferry school districts (which never happened).  Then, in 2000,
Dobbs Ferry and Hastings allied to form the Rivertowns League.

In 1967 and 1978 the Irvington League produced and distributed pamphlets detailing village history, services and political structure.  (The earlier pamphlet noted that first-time voter registrants were compelled to present either a diploma or proof of passing a literacy exam.)  In ’1978 the Irvington League disbanded and merged with the Greenburgh League, as did the Ardsley League, after half a century of activity.

The Tarrytown League reported a meeting of 50 members in 1955 (babysitting was available!); two years later membership had doubled.  In 1964 Tarrytown recorded 123 members, one of whom was Happy Rockefeller, wife of the governor.  Though records are scarce, Tarrytown too seems to have been subsumed into the Greenburgh League.

The Greenburgh League continued active until the 1980’s, when it disbanded and sent its members into the remaining Westchester leagues, Hastings and Dobbs Ferry.  In 2000, the Hastings and Dobbs Ferry leagues merged into the Rivertowns League. 

Today LWV Rivertowns has members who reside in nine Hudson Valley towns and villages: Ardsley, Briarcliff Manor, Croton-on-Hudson, Dobbs Ferry, Hastings-on-Hudson, Irvington, Ossining, Sleepy Hollow, Tarrytown, and one city, Yonkers. But soon it became apparent that the LWVR it had limited ability to service all the Rivertowns going north from Tarrytown, especially regarding candidate forums.

In 2022 the Rivertowns League helped to support the creation of a new League: LWV of Northwest Westchester, which now serves the towns and villages of Briarcliff Manor, Buchanan, Croton-on-Hudson, Cortlandt, Montrose, Ossining, Peekskill, Verplank, Yorktown, Shrub Oak, Mohegan Lake & Jefferson Valley.

Both Leagues are also part of the LWV of Westchester and the LWV of New York State.

LWV Rivertowns cooperates with LWVNWW for programs and registration drives, and also with other local non-partisan organizations, so that we can continue to “make Democracy work!”

THE League of Women Voters
OF THE UNITED STATES

History.   The U.S. Constitution, written in 1787, granted the states the power to set voting requirements.  Generally, states limited this right (aka suffrage) to property-owning or tax-paying white males aged 21 or older.  At the time of the first presidential election in 1789, only 6% of the population was eligible to vote.

In 1848 women began to organize to seek the right to vote.  In 1869, after a bitter fight for universal suffrage, the Constitution was amended by the 15th Amendment to give the right to vote to Black men, but not to women.  The suffragists then split into  two factions, divided on the issues of tactics, philosophy, and even goals.  They continued their fight, but with little success.  

It was not until 1890 that they merged to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA).  Elizabeth Cady Stanton, age 75, was elected president; after two years her comrade-in-arms, Susan B. Anthony, five years younger, took on the presidency.  But these elder activists were tired, having fought for the Cause for more than 40 years.   A young woman from Wisconsin named Carrie Chapman Catt addressed the first NAWSA convention, and impressed all with her intelligence, energy and oratory.  She quickly became a star of the movement—an eloquent, dedicated writer, recruiter and lecturer—and in 1900, took over the presidency of NAWSA.

Catt’s “Winning Plan” proposed a campaign on two fronts:  encouraging individual states to give women the right to vote, while simultaneously urging Congress to pass a Constitutional amendment.  The suffragists began to see results:  in the next 18 years, 15 states granted full suffrage to women and 12 more allowed women to vote in presidential elections.  On the national front, in 1919, President Woodrow Wilson, who had been inexorably opposed to women suffrage, reversed his position, and the seemingly unmovable Congress passed the 19th Amendment.  This was swiftly ratified by the necessary 36 states.  The last state to ratify was Tennessee on August 18, 1920. 

The 19th Amendment became the law of the land, stating:  “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”

Six months earlier, Catt had had a revelation:  she realized that NAWSA had achieved its goal and was obsolete.  "What are we going to do?” she wrote.  “We know nothing about politics. We've got the vote.  Now we must learn to use it.”  And so she turned NAWSA into the League of Women Voters, calling it “a mighty political experiment” focused on two goals:  voter education, women and men alike, and progressive legislation; including: child labor laws, collective bargaining, compulsory education and a minimum wage. 
Women rushed to join:  by 1924 there were leagues in 346 of the nation’s 433 Congressional districts.   

Carrie Chapman Catt lived in Briarcliff Manor and New Rochelle. She served as the League’s honorary president until her death in 1947 at age 88.  Late in life she philosophically summed up her life’s work:  “The League of Women Voters is an effort to make into a working reality those dreams of a free America,  that democracy is something worth giving a lifetime to obtain, that we will not rest until there is an all-American democracy which lives up to its own boasts.”