Best regards, Andrew Stewart
Begin forwarded message: > From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW <[email protected]> > Date: March 2, 2021 at 5:13:41 PM EST > To: [email protected] > Cc: H-Net Staff <[email protected]> > Subject: H-Net Review [H-FedHist]: Gunter on Ware, 'Why They Marched: Untold > Stories of the Women Who Fought for the Right to Vote' > Reply-To: [email protected] > > Susan Ware. Why They Marched: Untold Stories of the Women Who Fought > for the Right to Vote. Cambridge Belknap Press of Harvard > University Press, 2019. viii + 345 pp. $26.95 (cloth), ISBN > 978-0-674-98668-8. > > Reviewed by Rachel Gunter (Collin College - Spring Creek Campus) > Published on H-FedHist (March, 2021) > Commissioned by Caryn E. Neumann > > Susan Ware's Why They Marched: Untold Stories of the Women Who Fought > for the Right to Vote is a material history of the suffrage movement > which uses selected items to tell "discrete but overlapping > biographical stories" (p. 4). As this work is a kind of love letter > to the Schlesinger Library, nearly all of the items come from its > collection. Ware argues that "biography captures the power and > passion of [individuals]; material culture helps make the stories > even more real" (p. 285). She uses each item of material culture to > launch into a mini-biography of understudied figures that adds to the > reader's understanding of the suffrage movement. For example, Ware > uses cartes de visite (a form of photography), a death mask, and a > saddle bag and sash to tell the stories of Sojourner Truth, Charlotte > Perkins Gilman, and Claiborne Catlin, respectively. It is a wonderful > use of material history, which students will find engaging and > entertaining. > > The book is divided into three sections. The first covers suffrage > roughly from the aftermath of the Civil War through the early > twentieth century; the second looks to how suffrage personally shaped > women's lives and relationships; and the third covers the final push > for the Susan B. Anthony Amendment. The book focuses on nineteen > items in honor of the Nineteenth Amendment. As a result, each chapter > is relatively short. While the entire text could certainly be used in > undergraduate courses, assigning individual chapters may prove useful > as well. > > The book offers incredibly diverse coverage of the suffrage movement. > Ware devotes a chapter each to Black suffragists Sojourner Truth and > March Church Terrell. She covers international suffrage work with > Terrell as well as in a chapter on Alice Stone Blackwell's activism. > Working-class suffragists are represented in a chapter on Rose > Schneiderman and the Equality League of Self-Supporting Women. Even > anti-suffragists are included in a chapter on the Nathan sisters, one > of whom was a suffragist and the other an anti-suffragist. Male > suffragists are also covered in a chapter on Ray Brown, husband of > New York Woman Suffrage Association President Gertrude Foster Brown, > and Mormon women are included in a chapter on Emmeline Wells. > > Further, in chapters that focus on the National American Woman > Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and the National Woman's Party (NWP), it > would have been easy to focus primarily on Carrie Chapman Catt and > Alice Paul. However, Ware chooses to direct attention to Hazel > Hunkins and Maud Wood Park, while still including Catt and Paul of > course. (The author appears to be more of a fan of Paul than of > Catt.) The final three chapters do a particularly good job of > analyzing the passage and ratification of the Anthony Amendment. The > work closes with a chapter on the NWP, a chapter on NAWSA's Front > Door Lobby, and a final chapter where both organizations and their > tactics take part in the ratification campaign in Tennessee. > > Although Ware attempts to include the West and South, the geographic > coverage of the book still tilts heavily to the Northeast in part > because of the source base and in part because of the suffrage > movement itself. Her effort to include regions outside of the > Northeast is clear in how thin some of the connections are between > the objects and subjects chosen. For example, chapter 6, "The Shadow > of the Confederacy," begins with a badge belonging to former > Confederate soldier Alexander Green Beauchamp of Mississippi. > However, the chapter focuses on Mary Johnston of Virginia and has > little to do with the item introduced at its start. > > Sometimes the material items hold surprises. In a chapter on > suffragists in the western United States, Ware begins with a suffrage > cookbook, in the vein of other charity cookbooks of the era. However, > this one was written by mountaineering suffragists and the recipe for > trout begins with "First catch your trout" (p. 182). Ware also > details a suffrage pennant that these mountaineers placed in a crater > on Ruth Mountain when they could not make it to the summit due to > weather. She notes that if they had returned with the pennant or a > photograph of the pennant on the summit, that such an item would have > been included in this book and calls it "a reminder of the > serendipity that allows some objects to survive and others to > disappear forever" (p. 187). > > Like any text covering such a vast span of time and space, there are > some issues. Several times throughout the work, Ware equates > citizenship with suffrage, though she notes that the courts found a > clear distinction between the two. Still, Ware argues that "once the > 19th Amendment passed, activists claimed a new moniker--that of woman > citizens. The sustained activism of suffragists-turned-woman-citizens > provides the clearest answer to why suffrage mattered" (p. 281). > However, as several states allowed non-citizens to vote in 1920 and > large groups of citizens remained disfranchised, a more nuanced > approach to citizenship and its relation to voting rights is needed. > Ware's "Bread and Roses" chapter on Rose Schneiderman would have been > a good place to discuss the disconnect between citizenship and voting > rights further. She begins the chapter with a stat: "in 1910, > approximately 15 percent of the American population was foreign-born" > and ends with Schneiderman pursuing naturalization in 1916 in > anticipation of woman suffrage (p. 209). A brief explanation of the > fact that citizenship did not guarantee voting rights and that > several states did not limit voting to citizens would have been > useful. > > While Ware devotes a chapter to life partners Molly Dewson and Polly > Porter, I found the disparity between the directness with which Ware > approached heterosexual relationships, be they marriages or affairs, > and the opaque word choice around homosexuality throughout the book > to be frustrating. Ware even mentions the Henry James play _The > Bostonians _(1896)_ _without mentioning Boston marriages. While > queering the movement should be about more than identifying same-sex > relationships, I found the indirect language lacking. > > These issues aside, _Why They Marched _is a thoroughly researched and > fascinating read on a diverse suffrage movement that will help spur > interest in the movement well after the Anthony Amendment's > centennial year. Both those new to suffrage history and those > incredibly familiar with it will find new and intriguing stories in > Ware's work. > > Citation: Rachel Gunter. Review of Ware, Susan, _Why They Marched: > Untold Stories of the Women Who Fought for the Right to Vote_. > H-FedHist, H-Net Reviews. March, 2021. > URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=55134 > > This work is licensed under a Creative Commons > Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States > License. > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. 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