Women's Centennial Congress


The Women's Centennial Congress was organized by Carrie Chapman Catt and held at the Astor Hotel on November 25-27, 1940, to celebrate a century of female progress. The date was 100 years after the first World Anti-Slavery Convention in London in 1840, where women were forbidden from speaking or voting. This event was a catalyst for later efforts in the suffrage movement, especially the Seneca Falls Convention. At the Women's Centennial Congress, 100 successful women, most notably Eleanor Roosevelt, were selected to represent female progress in numerous fields, although Catt had failed to get Roosevelt to attend the conference.
A later commentator evaluated the conference as a media event.