Which organization and its leaders mobilized support for suffrage, culminating in the 19th Amendment?

• A. The National Women's Party; leaders included Alice Paul and Lucy Burns
• B. The American Equal Rights Association; leaders included Susan B. Anthony and Lucretia Mott
• C. The International Women's Suffrage Alliance; leaders included Millicent Fawcett and Carrie Chapman Catt
• D. The National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA); leaders included Susan B. Anthony and Carrie Chapman Catt

Answer: (D)

The main point is identifying the organization that coordinated the broad, nationwide push for women’s suffrage and delivered the campaign that led to the 19th Amendment. The National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) did exactly that by merging the two major strands of the movement in 1890 and building a sustained, nationwide effort. Its leadership—beginning with Susan B. Anthony in the movement’s earlier years and later with Carrie Chapman Catt—developed a comprehensive strategy that combined state-by-state campaigns with federal lobbying, steadily mobilizing support across many states and across political lines. That coordinated, long-running approach ultimately secured enough momentum to achieve ratification of the constitutional amendment granting women the vote in 1920.

Other groups existed in the era but played different roles or operated on different scales. The National Women’s Party, led by Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, split from NAWSA in 1916 and pursued more confrontational tactics toward a federal amendment; the American Equal Rights Association had earlier dissolved after internal disagreements, and the International Women’s Suffrage Alliance was an international coalition rather than a U.S.-focused effort.