The National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) was created in 1890, when two competing American women's suffrage advocacy groups united.

The National Woman Suffrage Association, an American women's rights organization, was established by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony in 1869.

In 1869, Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe, and Josephine Ruffin, formed the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) in Boston, Massachusetts.

The AWSA was less militant than the National Woman Suffrage Association and unlike the NWSA, it did not campaign on other issues such as employer discrimination and easier divorce for women.

In 1870, the AWSA founded the Women's Journal, a magazine edited by Lucy Stone.

In 1890, AWSA, and NWSA merged to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), which was led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Carrie Chapman Catt, Frances Willard, Mary Church Terrell, Matilda Joslyn Gage and Anna Howard Shaw .