Constitution of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance in the Woman's Rights Collection, 1909

Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, invited representatives of suffrage societies from other countries to National American Woman Suffrage Association 's 1902 annual convention in Washington. Representatives from ten countries decided to form a loose international union, which formally became the International Woman Suffrage Alliance at the second meeting, held in Berlin two years later.

International Woman Suffrage Alliance, which later became the International Alliance of Women, held its "First Quinquennial IWSA Meeting" in London, April 26-May 1, 1909. Representatives from twenty countries attended; Catt presided. Although this meeting has been referred to (particularly by contemporaries) as the fifth congress or convention, historians usually refer to it as the fourth. For further information see Adele Schreiber and Margaret Mathieson, Journey Towards Freedom, Written for the Golden Jubilee of the International Alliance of Women (London: William Clowes and Sons, 1955) or Arnold Whittick, Woman into Citizen (London: Athenaeum, 1979).