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The Woman's Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote Kindle Edition
Soon to Be a Major Television Event
The nail-biting climax of one of the greatest political battles in American history: the ratification of the constitutional amendment that granted women the right to vote.
"With a skill reminiscent of Robert Caro, [Weiss] turns the potentially dry stuff of legislative give-and-take into a drama of courage and cowardice."--The Wall Street Journal
"Weiss is a clear and genial guide with an ear for telling language ... She also shows a superb sense of detail, and it's the deliciousness of her details that suggests certain individuals warrant entire novels of their own... Weiss's thoroughness is one of the book's great strengths. So vividly had she depicted events that by the climactic vote (spoiler alert: The amendment was ratified!), I got goose bumps."--Curtis Sittenfeld, The New York Times Book Review
Nashville, August 1920. Thirty-five states have ratified the Nineteenth Amendment, twelve have rejected or refused to vote, and one last state is needed. It all comes down to Tennessee, the moment of truth for the suffragists, after a seven-decade crusade. The opposing forces include politicians with careers at stake, liquor companies, railroad magnates, and a lot of racists who don't want black women voting. And then there are the "Antis"--women who oppose their own enfranchisement, fearing suffrage will bring about the moral collapse of the nation. They all converge in a boiling hot summer for a vicious face-off replete with dirty tricks, betrayals and bribes, bigotry, Jack Daniel's, and the Bible.
Following a handful of remarkable women who led their respective forces into battle, along with appearances by Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, Frederick Douglass, and Eleanor Roosevelt, The Woman's Hour is an inspiring story of activists winning their own freedom in one of the last campaigns forged in the shadow of the Civil War, and the beginning of the great twentieth-century battles for civil rights.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPenguin Books
- Publication dateMarch 6, 2018
- File size49.7 MB
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“At the heart of democracy lies the ballot box, and Elaine Weiss’s unforgettable book tells the story of the female leaders who—in the face of towering economic, racial, and political opposition—fought for and won American women's right to vote. Unfolding over six weeks in the summer of 1920, The Woman’s Hour is both a page-turning drama and an inspiration for everyone, young and old, male and female, in these perilous times. So much could have gone wrong, but these American women would not take no for an answer: their triumph is our legacy to guard and emulate.”—Hillary Rodham Clinton
“Stirring, definitive, and engrossing….Weiss brings a lucid, lively, journalistic tone to the story…The Woman's Hour is compulsory reading.”—NPR.org
“Weiss is a clear and genial guide with an ear for telling language … She also shows a superb sense of detail, and it’s the deliciousness of her details that suggests certain individuals warrant entire novels of their own… Weiss’s thoroughness is one of the book’s great strengths. So vividly had she depicted events that by the climactic vote (spoiler alert: The amendment was ratified!), I got goose bumps.”—Curtis Sittenfeld, The New York Times Book Review
"With a skill reminiscent of Robert Caro, [Weiss] turns the potentially dry stuff of legislative give-and-take into a drama of courage and cowardice."—The Wall Street Journal
“A genteel but bare-knuckled political thriller…the account reads like a reality show, impossible to predict…Weiss’ narrative is energetic and buoyant even at the most critical moments.”—Ms. Magazine
“A nonfiction political thriller…Weiss zeroes in on the final campaign of the suffrage movement.”—Bustle.com
“Riveting… Weiss provides a multidimensional account of the political crusade… The result is a vivid work of American history.” —The National Book Review
“Anyone interested in the history of our country’s ongoing fight to put its founding values into practice—as well as those seeking the roots of current political fault lines—would be well-served by picking up Elaine Weiss’s The Woman’s Hour. By focusing in on the final battle in the war to win women the right to vote, told from the point of view of its foot soldiers, Weiss humanizes both the women working in favor of the amendment and those working against it, exposing all their convictions, tactics, and flaws. She never shies away from the complicating issue of race; the frequent conflict and occasional sabotage that occurred between women’s suffrage activists and the leaders of the nascent civil rights movement make for some of the most fascinating material in the book.”—Margot Lee Shetterly, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Hidden Figures
“Even the most informed feminists will learn a thing or two.”—HelloGiggles
“[A] lively history.”—Newsday
“This timely exploration of the history of American gender politics reverberates during the present debate over female equality in all aspects of life and reminds us of how long and complex that struggle has been.”—Knoxville News Sentinel
“An intriguing, timely read. Ripe for book club discussion.”—South Coast Today
“[An] important tale…Weiss’ reportage…enables her to add splashes of color [and] wonderful dimension.”—USA Today
“A page-turner…the story here is told in all its ugliness.”—New York Journal of Books
"This well-researched and well-documented history reveals how prosuffragists sometimes compromised racial equality to win white women’s enfranchisement, and that, although the 19th Amendment was ratified, there exists to this day an ongoing battle to effect universal, unrestricted suffrage."—Library Journal
“Weiss does a wonderful job of laying out the background of the American women’s suffrage movement….A lively slice of history filled with political drama, Weiss’s book captures a watershed moment for American women.”—Book Page
“Remarkably entertaining ... a timely examination of a shining moment in the ongoing fight to achieve a more perfect union.”—Publishers Weekly, Starred and Boxed Review
“Imaginatively conceived and vividly written, The Woman’s Hour gives us a stirring history of women's long journey to suffrage and to political influence. Making bold connection with race and class, Weiss’s splendid book is as much needed today as it was in 1940 when Eleanor Roosevelt noted that men hate women with power. As every victory since the Civil War and Reconstruction faces the wrecker, The Woman’s Hour is an inspiration in the continuing struggles for suffrage, and for race and gender justice, and for democracy.—Blanche Wiesen Cook, author of the New York Times bestseller Eleanor Roosevelt
Praise for Fruits of Victory
"Weiss's excellent work of cross-disciplinary scholarship offers readers a unique look at how WWI changed society."
—Booklist
"Weiss effectively chronicles the birth of the WLA movement and the dedicated women behind it. Recommended for both scholarly readers and interested history buffs."
—Library Journal
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
...
To Nashville
Carrie Chapman Catt had spent a long night, day, and early evening on trains clattering over a thousand miles of track from New York City to Nashville. In the hours she wasn't reading field reports and legal documents, rimless eyeglasses perched on her nose, she read the newspapers and indulged in the guilty pleasure of a detective novel.
By the time the train pulled into Nashville in the dusky twilight, it was hard to make out the copper-and-bronze statue of the messenger god Mercury perched atop the Union Station tower, greeting travelers to the bustling capital city. Minerva, the warrior goddess, might have been a more fitting figure for the president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, Susan B. Anthony's anointed heir, the supreme commander of its great suffrage army, the woman they called "the Chief." Carrie Catt had been summoned to lead her troops into the fray one last time. At least she dearly hoped this might be the last time.
She'd already devoted half of her life to the Cause, three decades of constant work and travel. Her hair was silver and wavy, and she wore it short and brushed close, parted in the center, easy to groom on the run. Her face, once angular and strikingly handsome, was fleshier now. Her heavy eyelids drooped a bit, and the line of her jaw had softened, but she retained the same sly, thin-lipped smile, piercing blue eyes, and arched eyebrows that made her look either surprised, amused, or annoyed depending upon how she deployed them. She was definitely not amused this evening; she was worried, and she wasn't sure she could take the strain much longer.
It was Catt's job-more precisely, her life's mission-to guide American women to the promised land of political freedom, securing for them the most basic right of democracy, the vote. For more than seventy years, since that first audacious meeting in Seneca Falls in 1848, generations of her suffrage sisters had faced public disdain, humiliation, rotten eggs, violent opposition, and prison as they petitioned, campaigned, lobbied, marched, and pleaded for their simple rights as citizens. Now the promise of the franchise, so long delayed, was within sight; the political emancipation of half of the United States' citizens was at stake. And here, of all places, where she'd never imagined it possible, in the South, in Nashville.Tennessee could become the elusive thirty-sixth state to ratify the federal woman suffrage amendment. Or it could end the quest in failure.
The Tennessee legislature would soon be called into special session to vote on ratifying the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, popularly called "the Susan B. Anthony Amendment," one simple sentence stating that a citizen's right to vote could not be denied on account of sex. Nothing revolutionary, to Carrie Catt's mind. It was really just a clarification, an essential correction, of the Founding Fathers' damned shortsightedness.
Just over a year earlier, in June 1919, the amendment had finally been pushed through both houses of the U.S. Congress-after forty years of willful delay. Catt had kicked up her heels and broken into a wild dance when that news arrived. The amendment then moved to the states for ratification. She knew it would be a tough slog: suffragists had to convince at least thirty-six state legislatures-three-quarters of the forty-eight states in the Union-to accept the amendment, while those opposed needed just thirteen states to vote it down and kill it. The ratification campaign proved even slower and uglier than Catt expected; she had been sure it would be over by now, but it wasn't. By midsummer 1920, thirty-five states had ratified the amendment, eight had rejected, three were refusing to consider; North Carolina and Tennessee were still up in the air, but North Carolina was a sure bet to reject. That left only Tennessee as a possible thirty-sixth state.
If the Tennessee legislature could be persuaded, pressured, cajoled, and coerced (all these techniques would be needed, Catt was certain) to ratify the amendment, suffrage would become federal law, allowing every woman, in every state, to vote in all elections. Victory at last, hallelujah, and just in time for the upcoming presidential election.
But if Tennessee did not ratify, derailing the full enfranchisement of twenty-seven million women before the fall elections, all might be lost. The momentum was stalling after several state legislatures had voted down ratification this past spring and summer. Although the "No" votes in Georgia and Louisiana had surprised no one-nearly every southern state of the old Confederacy had rejected the amendment-the loss in more moderate, mid-Atlantic Delaware was a shock. A defeat in Tennessee, which enjoyed stronger suffrage sympathies and deeper organization than the other southern states, would allow the forces against suffrage to gain strength, new legal obstacles to be thrown into the path, men to forget what women had contributed to the Great War effort, women to lose heart. That crucial sense of inevitability, the public assumption that to support woman suffrage was simply to keep in step with the march of progress, was faltering. And that infuriating question-is America really ready for women to vote, to be equal citizens?-was bubbling up again. Adding to her agitation, the newspapers were filled with the sorts of stories that gave Americans good reason to be in a sour mood.
Even after seventeen million people had been killed in the so-called Great War, the world was still aflame. The Russian Bolsheviks were invading Poland and vowing to advance into Romania and Bulgaria, Latvia, and Lithuania; the Ottoman Turks were fighting the Greeks while continuing to massacre and deport Armenians; the Irish nationalist Sinn Fin was skirmishing with British troops. Mexico was spiraling into civil war again; factions were battling in China. The premise, trumpeted by so many posters and in so many parades, that American men had fought and died in the War to End All Wars looked to be a fake.
Even the peace seemed chimerical: the negotiations at Paris had dragged on for months, and the U.S. Senate had recently refused to accept the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, objecting to President Wilson's plan for a League of Nations to settle international disputes. Americans wanted nothing more to do with foreign entanglements. Catt thought the league was the only good thing to come out of the horrible war; she'd written and spoken in its favor and was disgusted by the backlash against it.
The war had brought neither the peace nor the prosperity the nation had been promised. As Catt's train sped toward Nashville, streetcar workers were striking in Chicago, coal miners were stuck in long, bloody lockouts in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Illinois, garment workers were threatening in New Jersey. There'd been nationwide steel mill, coal, railroad, and shipbuilding strikes in 1919-more than two thousand strikes around the country-while race riots had erupted in many cities. The postwar economic recession had now deepened into a full-blown depression. National Prohibition, which Catt had supported as a way to protect women and children from alcohol-fueled abuse, was only adding to the climate of violence, as federal agents pulled their enforcement shotguns on backwoods moonshiners and city bootleggers while mobsters jockeyed for turf with machine guns.
Anarchists were taking advantage of the turmoil, and accounts of exploding bombs in mail packages, in cars, and in offices and homes were a staple news item. The government was responding with raids, mass arrests, and deportations of suspected radicals (a pair of Italian anarchists, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti had recently been arrested in Massachusetts) authorized by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, whose own home had been bombed the year before. The "Palmer Raids" were executed by his ambitious young assistant J. Edgar Hoover, who'd begun keeping secret files on those who questioned or criticized the government, anyone who wasn't a "Good American." Carrie Catt was also being watched.
And every day this summer there was another article about a cheeky fellow in Boston named Charles Ponzi, who had convinced thousands of people to give him their money with promises of too-good-to-be-true investment returns: double your money in ninety days. Ponzi's clever pyramid scheme was definitely too good to be true, and he would soon be under arrest. Even the national pastime, baseball, was under a cloud of suspicion: rumors were circulating that several Chicago White Sox players had deliberately made bad plays to throw the 1919 World Series in exchange for cash from gamblers. All this only added to the national dyspepsia; Americans felt as if they'd been fed too many lies, taken for chumps one too many times.
The newly minted presidential candidates had quickly picked up on the zeitgeist. Republican nominee Warren Harding was already talking about a return to "normalcy" and "America First," which Catt understood meant a retreat from progressive ideas and a slide back to comfortable, conservative policies. Democrat James Cox was carefully hedging his bets on everything. If the amendment didn't pass now, before the election, before the nation swung into an isolationist, reactionary frame of mind, it might never pass at all.
Miss Josephine Pearson was dusty from the soot flying into her trainÕs open windows and a bit stiff from the hard wooden-slat seat, but she didnÕt mind the discomforts. Pearson had received a telegram earlier that Saturday afternoon at her home in Monteagle, a hamlet perched high on TennesseeÕs Cumberland Plateau.
"Mrs. Catt arrived. Our forces are being notified to rally at once. Send orders-and come immediately." She was to take command in Nashville.
The summons thrilled her. As president of the Tennessee State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage and also head of the state division of the Southern Women's League for the Rejection of the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, Josephine was the proud leader of the Tennessee Antis. Now the fight had come home to her Volunteer State. This would be Tennessee's time of trial and, she prayed, triumph. With God's help, it would meet the challenge of beating back the scourge of woman suffrage, holding fast against the feminist epidemic sweeping the nation and now threatening her home. This was her crusade and this was her moment.
She was fifty-two years old, and all of her training-college, graduate degrees, and her years as an educator-had prepared her for this mission. She knew she was doing God's will, fulfilling a sacred vow to her beloved mother, who had understood the dangers of female suffrage, how it mocked the plan of the Creator, undermined women's purity and the noble chivalry of men, and threatened the home and the family.The Bible said a woman's place was in the home, as loving wife and mother, not in the dirty realm of politics, not in the polling booth or in the jury box, where her delicate sensibilities could be assaulted, her morals sullied and even corrupted. Her men knew what was best for her, would protect and cherish her, make laws and decisions for her benefit. Pearson felt there was no need to question the wisdom of Tennessee men or Tennessee laws.
But the threat went beyond this. Woman suffrage could upend the supremacy of the white race and the southern way of life. After the brutal disruptions of the Civil War and the upheavals of Reconstruction-when black men were allowed to vote (and some were even elected to the legislature) but former Confederate soldiers were considered traitors and stripped of their voting rights-the southern states had finally achieved a degree of equilibrium, in terms of restoring racial and political relations, the Pearson family believed. Jim Crow laws kept blacks in their place. But if a federal amendment mandated suffrage for all women, that would mean black women, too. Then Washington could demand that black men be allowed to vote, and that was totally unacceptable.
Barely a week before Mother had died in the summer of 1915, in the library of their house on the Methodist Assembly grounds in Monteagle (Father was a retired Methodist minister), Amanda Pearson had grasped Josephine's hand and implored: "Daughter, when I'm gone-if the Susan B. Anthony Amendment issue reaches Tennessee-promise me, you will take up the opposition, in My Memory!" Josephine bent to kiss her mother's brow, to impress the vow upon her forehead, and answered: "Yes, God helping, I'll keep the faith, Mother!"
So when the telegram arrived late Saturday afternoon, it was with a sense of holy purpose that Josephine Pearson quickly packed her travel case, walked from her house to the Monteagle depot, and bought a one-way ticket for the late train to Nashville.
Even before Josephine made the vow to her mother, she had come to the conclusion that suffrage was a dangerous idea; she arrived at this judgment by what she considered empirical and scholarly investigation, as befitted a woman with higher education and intellectual accomplishments. Early in her career she served as a high school principal and went on to teach English and history at Nashville College for Young Ladies and Winthrop State Normal College for Women in South Carolina. In 1909, she assumed the position of dean and chair of philosophy at Christian College in Columbia, Missouri, at a time when Missourians were debating a woman suffrage measure.
She found she often fell into argument with her colleagues and students about woman suffrage and was frequently the sole naysayer at the faculty table. She began to feel isolated, shunned for her resistance against the popular political tide. She came to resent her faculty colleagues who snubbed her and used their positions to coerce their impressionable students with their terrible suffrage ideas. During semester breaks, Josephine undertook her own version of field research to determine whether women in those few western states where females already had the right to vote, such as Wyoming, were really better off for having the franchise. She collected her own data and conducted interviews and came to the conclusion that suffrage had exposed women to the filth of politics without improving their lives at all. She began to give lectures to antisuffrage audiences and found herself hailed as an Anti leader in the state.
Her academic career in Missouri was cut short in the spring of 1914 by the call to come home to care for her ailing mother, and she returned to Monteagle to nurse her mother and aged father. From her sickbed, Mother continued to write her diatribes against the evils of whiskey and suffrage, and after her death, honoring the vow, Josephine continued the work. She sat at her desk, writing deep into the night, sending her missives to the newspapers in Nashville and Memphis and Chattanooga. The publisher of the Chattanooga Times, Adolph Ochs, was especially welcoming to her antisuffrage proclamations; Ochs's editorial pages, in both his Chattanooga paper and its sister publication, The New York Times, were firmly in her Anti camp. Pearson's dedication was recognized and she was eventually tapped to become president of the Tennessee antisuffragists. And now, like the Confederate generals whose brave exploits had been extolled in her family's parlor, whose names and deeds she knew by heart, she would stand in defense of the South.
Product details
- ASIN : B073TK1QWV
- Publisher : Penguin Books; Reprint edition (March 6, 2018)
- Publication date : March 6, 2018
- Language : English
- File size : 49.7 MB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Print length : 417 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #507,217 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #183 in Campaigns & Elections
- #680 in Elections
- #1,308 in History eBooks of Women
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Elaine Weiss is a journalist and narrative non-fiction author. Her magazine feature writing has been recognized with prizes from the Society of Professional Journalists, and her by-line has appeared in The Atlantic, Harper’s, New York Times, Boston Globe, Philadelphia Inquirer, as well as reports and documentaries for National Public Radio and Voice of America. She has been a frequent correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor.
Elaine is a proud MacDowell Colony Fellow. Her first book, Fruits of Victory:The Woman's Land Army in the Great War was excerpted in Smithsonian Magazine online and featured on C-Span and public radio stations nationwide.
Her new book, The Woman's Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote, a narrative account of the dramatic climax of the woman's suffrage movement, will be published by Viking in March 2018.
Elaine lives in Baltimore, Maryland. When not working at her desk, she can be found paddling her kayak on the Chesapeake Bay.
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the book compelling and exciting. They describe it as an important piece of political history. The writing style is well-written and eloquent. Readers appreciate the meticulous research and informative account of the suffrage movement. However, opinions differ on the character development - some find the characters come alive with added flair, while others feel there is not enough interaction or the cast is too extensive.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the book engaging and exciting. They describe it as an insightful account that is entertaining and enlightening at the same time. The book is considered a must-read for all citizens and women, especially young ones.
"...us all a favour in thoroughly researching her subject, in the electrifying manner in which she has recounted this history, and in bringing home to..." Read more
"The author has written a superb and insightful account of the immense political struggles and machinations for passage of the U.S. Constitution's..." Read more
"...Because the reader knows the ending, however, the details become somewhat cumbersome and will have a tendency to skim which is unfortunate...." Read more
"This was a thoroughly-enjoyable book...." Read more
Customers find the book engaging and informative about the history of women's suffrage in the US. They describe it as a riveting story that keeps them on the edge of their seats. The author seamlessly weaves key historical events from the 72-year campaign for women's suprization into the narrative. Overall, readers find the subject inspiring and interesting, making it a must-read for all women.
"This is a momentous book about the fight for women’s suffrage in the early 20th Century in the USA and the amazing women who made it happen against..." Read more
"...It's an important historical account and is absolutely worth reading." Read more
"...This is history every American woman should read and understand. Recommended." Read more
"...It summarizes the American suffrage movement and specifically focuses on the battle in Tennessee to be the 36th state to pass the 19th amendment in..." Read more
Customers find the book well-written and engaging. They appreciate the author's eloquent storytelling and thorough research. The book chronicles history in an easy-to-read way, though some readers mention issues with the cover.
"...The book is comprehensively researched and well written, providing insights into the complexities and difficulties faced by the U.S. women's..." Read more
"This was a thoroughly-enjoyable book. Weiss’s prose really breathes life into history, so much so that you feel like you really understand what..." Read more
"...Stylistically, the story was workmanlike---- competently handled but not elevated or incisive...." Read more
"Awesome book - chronicles history in an easy to read way" Read more
Customers find the book informative and well-researched. They appreciate the detailed account and insights into the political movement. The book is a good reference that helps explain what the suffragists did and how divided the movement was.
"...Elaine Weiss has done us all a favour in thoroughly researching her subject, in the electrifying manner in which she has recounted this history, and..." Read more
"The author has written a superb and insightful account of the immense political struggles and machinations for passage of the U.S. Constitution's..." Read more
"...It was fascinating to read about the deep and complex relationships between Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony in..." Read more
"...Her research is excellent and the book is a compelling read...." Read more
Customers find the book informative about women's suffrage and the 19th Amendment that gave women the right to vote. They say it's a must-read on the history class missed.
"...does a nice job of applying an intersectional and critical lens to the history of women’s suffrage...." Read more
"...2020 is when the 19th amendment actually was ratified and women got the right to vote...." Read more
"...book about the ratification of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote...." Read more
"...The author turned it into a knock-down, drag-out fight for the right for women to vote...." Read more
Customers have different views on the character development. Some find the characters come alive with added flair and the villains presented as full personalities rather than paper villains. They appreciate the intimate look at their personalities and tactics. Others feel there was not enough character interaction to make it an enjoyable read, and the cast of characters is very extensive and hard to follow.
"...for the 19th Amendment in Tennessee, Weiss gives a more intimate look at the personalities and tactics while providing a solid background on the..." Read more
"...But it was hard to read for two reasons. First, the cast of characters is very extensive and was hard to follow...." Read more
"...The characters come alive with added flair. Each historical voice is thoroughly infused with his/her motivation for their actions...." Read more
"Too long, too many characters, and I kept falling asleep, but otherwise well researched, and as a Tennessee girl I did learn a lot." Read more
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Not happy
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on November 8, 2018This is a momentous book about the fight for women’s suffrage in the early 20th Century in the USA and the amazing women who made it happen against all the odds, not least of those being the opposition of other women to their own enfranchisement. It’s hard to believe that women are still fighting today for equal rights and that the Equal Rights Ammendment which was proposed by Alice Paul of the Woman's Political Party in 1923 has never been ratified. It is unforunate that we still see so many women work against their own sex as witnessed by the support given to Trump by apparently educated women but who as Weiss suggests are the direct political descendents of those wok worked against women's suffrage
It has done my heart good in this period of despair to be reminded of these brave, beautiful and thoughtful women. Carrie Catt, twice President of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, whose political awakening came at the tender age of thirteen when she came face to face with the galling reality that women were prohibited from voting, devoted the rest of her life to changing this injustice. The book recounts the thrilling story of the fight to get Tennesse to become the needed 36th State to ratify the 19th Amendment to the American Constitution. It inform, enrages, amuses and thrills at every turn. I can only imagine the suppressed feelings of outrage the women felt at having to rely on the goodwill of men, many of whom proved duplicitious, to attain what ought to have been an inalienable right from the outset. Weiss's description of the political machinations of the men and women involved in trying to deprive women of their just rights is priceless and a judicious lesson for those women recently elected to the House of Representatives if they can only fond time to read it. Catt and her colleagues were miraculously helped in their noble quest by a healthy donation from an unexpected and deliciously satisfying source. The shameful attempts by some to ignore the rights of black women is ably recounted by Weiss, an issue that resonates down to the present day. Elaine Weiss has done us all a favour in thoroughly researching her subject, in the electrifying manner in which she has recounted this history, and in bringing home to at least this reader the enormous gratitude we owe these women who worked so tirelessly and courageously and who in spite of the forces who worked against thme fought and won the good fight with style and humour. In the current climate we need to be reminded and if this book doesn't galvanise women to continue the fight to ensure that we are properly represented in the decision making process of our societies then I have to wonder what will? Best and most uplifting book I have read on the subject of women in ages.
- Reviewed in the United States on October 7, 2019The author has written a superb and insightful account of the immense political struggles and machinations for passage of the U.S. Constitution's 19th amendment, which finally awarded the constitutional right to vote to all U.S. women citizens, both white and black. The book is comprehensively researched and well written, providing insights into the complexities and difficulties faced by the U.S. women's suffragette movement over many decades. It's an important historical account and is absolutely worth reading.
- Reviewed in the United States on March 29, 2023The journey to gain voting rights for women in the US is well written but hard to read. This is history every American woman should read and understand. Recommended.
- Reviewed in the United States on February 24, 2019This was a thoroughly-enjoyable book. Weiss’s prose really breathes life into history, so much so that you feel like you really understand what makes so many of the women and men she writes about tick. Weiss also does a nice job of applying an intersectional and critical lens to the history of women’s suffrage. It was fascinating to read about the deep and complex relationships between Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony in particular. I found it a bit spooky (and comforting?) to learn just how closely the US political and social environment in the early 1900s parallels where we are today. Down to a 1920s Kellyanne Conway(!). It was so powerful to come away with a sense of just how many women have contributed (and continue to contribute) to the advancement of women’s rights since the birth of our nation. I feel more connected to the ongoing American story than ever before. After reading this book I purchased 10 copies for girlfriends of mine. It is an absolute travesty that women are essentially erased from the American historical narrative. If we actually learned the full story of America during our civic lessons in school, we’d be a much better nation for it.
- Reviewed in the United States on June 10, 2020Elaine Weiss has written a blockbuster just in time to help celebrate the Centennial of Woman Suffrage, i.e., passage of the 19th Amendment. She stayed in our city of Nashville, TN several months over a period of years, to do extensive research about the final push that occurred in the summer of 2019. Her research is excellent and the book is a compelling read. As one with a minor degree in women's studies, I thought I had read all about women's history. However, I learned several new things by reading this book. I am most excited that she included a full page picture of the Tennessee Woman Suffrage Monument that stands in Centennial Park in Nashville, TN where that vote took place when Tennessee became the 36th and final state needed to ratify the 19th Amendment. . I am the founder of the Woman Suffrage Monument, Inc. that raised the money and commissioned the statue to create a memorial for future generations so that the work of the Tennessee suffragists will not be forgotten. I highly recommend this book.