The Concise History of Woman Suffrage: Selections from the Classic Work of Stanton, Anthony, Gage, and Harper.

by Mari Jo Buhle (Editor), Paul M. Buhle (Editor)

University of Illinois Press; Second 1978. 468 pages.

Genres: History, Politics

468 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

Reviews

[Tom Schulte · Rating 3 out of 5]

My self-assigned reading for Women's History Month.

This is an anthology of documents produced by various suffragist meetings, such as speeches and resolutions. As such, it gets rather tedious and repetitive. One stand-out speaker is Sojourner Truth with her powerful “Ain't I A Woman?” speech delivered at the 1851 Women's Convention in Akron, Ohio. I just never tier of that one...

Still, standing up, this is a monumental effort running basically 1840 to 1920: an eighty year push. This includes two wars. In the Civil War the women are confronted with the strategy of biding their time while black men get the right to vote first, and then in WW I their temperance allies make progress on wedding their goals to enfranchisement.

Two things in reflection I had not thought about before:

1) Often it is stated that greater access and authority in church was right up their with political equality. What progress was made in that area?
2) The basic idea of an organization unable to directly access political machinery and using a national movement of conventions and resolutions seemed very effective and could still work today. Are there modern analogues? The process was very public and garnered attention while focusing effort.

[Jenna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good selection of (edited) primary documents, but otherwise, a rather dry (somewhat confusing) introductory chapter to the overall history of suffrage; other books do a better overview.