Stanton and Anthony founded the NWSA in New York City, becoming a major force for federal woman suffrage.
On May 15, 1869, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony founded the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) in New York City. Stanton served as its first president, a position she held for over two decades. The organization's founding followed a contentious split within the women's rights movement over the Fifteenth Amendment, which granted voting rights to Black men but not to women of any race.
Stanton and Anthony opposed ratification of the amendment without simultaneous provisions for woman suffrage, a position that put them at odds with former allies like Lucy Stone, who supported the amendment as an incremental step and went on to form the rival American Woman Suffrage Association later that same year.
The NWSA pursued a more radical and independent strategy, advocating for a federal constitutional amendment guaranteeing woman suffrage rather than pursuing state-by-state campaigns exclusively. The organization also addressed broader issues of women's legal and economic equality beyond suffrage alone, reflecting Stanton's expansive vision of women's rights.
In 1890, the NWSA merged with the American Woman Suffrage Association to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), healing the movement's long division. Stanton's founding leadership of the NWSA represents one of the most consequential institutional achievements of her career, establishing organizational infrastructure that would ultimately help secure the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920.