Final answer:
Both the NAWSA and the NWP were instrumental in securing women's voting rights through their different, yet complementary strategies. NAWSA worked within a more conservative framework appealing to traditional gender roles, while the NWP's radical tactics brought urgency to the cause and helped make NAWSA's moderate approach more appealing by comparison.
Step-by-step explanation:
The approaches of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and the National Woman's Party (NWP) were quite distinct in their quest to gain suffrage for women, and ultimately both played crucial roles in achieving this goal. NAWSA, led by figures like Carrie Chapman Catt, adopted a more conservative strategy, focusing on state-by-state campaigns and linking suffrage to women's roles as caretakers, thereby attracting a broad membership base and making significant gains, especially in the West. On the other hand, the NWP, under the leadership of Alice Paul, pursued a more radical and confrontational approach, including protests and picketing, and championed a federal amendment for women's voting rights.
While the NWP's direct action tactics were controversial, they served to make NAWSA's efforts appear more moderate by comparison, which helped garner wider acceptability for the suffrage movement. Furthermore, the NWP's dramatic actions, such as picketing the White House and facing arrests and prison sentences, generated public sympathy and increased pressure on politicians. The combined efforts of both organizations pushed the suffragist agenda into the national spotlight and contributed to the eventual passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1919.
Given the diverse landscape of political and social opinions at the time, it is likely that having both organizations, appealing to different audiences and employing varied strategies, was necessary to navigate the complexities of the political environment and successfully secure voting rights for women.