Carrie Chapman Catt Home
At the Carrie Chapman Catt Girlhood Home, we preserve her legacy and empower women through education and community outreach.
The Girlhood Home
A classic example of Victorian-era architecture and utilitarian design, the Carrie Chapman Catt Girlhood Home is located about three miles southeast of Charles City, Iowa, a farming and manufacturing community of 8,000 midway between Minneapolis and Des Moines.
The home today is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and has been restored at the direction of the National 19th Amendment Society, a volunteer, non-profit organization based in Charles City.
In 1865 and 1866, Carrie's father, Lucius Lane, constructed the first section of the home prior to his family's arrival from Ripon, Wisconsin. Seven-year-old Carrie, her nine-year-old brother Charles, and their mother Maria Clinton Lane lived in another house in town during construction and moved into the home in 1866.
Later additions, completed by about 1875, give the home its appearance today. Lucius Lane built the brick structure with enclosed, hollow exterior walls to provide efficient insulation for heating and cooling during each of Iowa's four robust seasons.
Restoration and Preservation
Final Visits
Perhaps the last time Carrie Chapman Catt visited the farm was in 1907, shortly following the death of her second husband, George Catt. She returned to Charles City that year to accompany her mother and younger brother, both in declining health. In September her brother William died at age 36; less than three months later, on December 3, her mother died following a lengthy illness.
Today's Home
By 1991, the eight-room Victorian-era farm house had fallen into serious disrepair. A century after the Lane family sold Spring Brook Farm, the home was sold to the non-profit National 19th Amendment Society. Preservation architect Bill Wagner and building contractor Dick Young supervised the restoration.
Wagner earlier supervised such projects as the National Park Service's Herbert Hoover birthplace in West Branch, the Mamie Doud Eisenhower birthplace in Boone, and Terrace Hill, the Iowa governor's mansion in Des Moines. Young has restored numerous historic properties in Charles City and northern Iowa.
A Long Legacy
Honored and praised by countless institutions for her more than half-century of public service, Carrie Chapman Catt died of heart failure at her New Rochelle, New York, home on March 9, 1947. At Woodlawn Cemetery in the north Bronx, New York, she is buried alongside her longtime companion, Mary Garret Hay, a fellow New York state suffragist, with whom she lived for over 20 years.
Biography courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prof. Jane Cox of Iowa State University, and the National 19th Amendment Society.