National Woman's Suffrage Association

The National Woman's Suffrage Association was a 19th-century women's suffrage organization. It was formed on May 15, 1869 in New York, by noted civil rights activists Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Stanton was its first President and Anthony was the first Vice President, until 1892 when she became President. The Association was active in acquiring the right to vote for women, this being the consistent focus of the organization's attention.

The organization also worked hard for admittance of working women into labor unions, and persisted in this effort with determination. In the years following Anthony's death in 1906 the NWSA became much more conservative in its tactics, focussing on winning suffrage on a state-by-state basis rather than through a national campaign for a constitutional amendment, and was increasingly tied to the Democratic Party. This led to a split in the movement after the election of Woodrow Wilson as President of the United States failed to yield hoped-for results. A more radical group, which became known as the National Woman's Party, split from the NWSA over the issue of mobilizing for a constitutional amendment and calling for the defeat of politicians, Democrat as well as Republican, who did not support votes for women.

See also: Women's tax resistance in the United States