Best regards, Andrew Stewart
Begin forwarded message: > From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW <[email protected]> > Date: April 21, 2021 at 5:49:02 PM EDT > To: [email protected] > Cc: H-Net Staff <[email protected]> > Subject: H-Net Review [H-Material-Culture]: Gruner on Jenkins, 'Exploring > Women's Suffrage through 50 Historic Treasures' > Reply-To: [email protected] > > Jessica D. Jenkins. Exploring Women's Suffrage through 50 Historic > Treasures. AASLH Exploring America's Historic Treasures series. > Lanham Rowman & Littlefield, 2020. xxxvi + 305 pp. $36.00 > (cloth), ISBN 978-1-5381-1279-3. > > Reviewed by Mariah R. Gruner (Boston University) > Published on H-Material-Culture (April, 2021) > Commissioned by Colin Fanning > > Jessica D. Jenkins's _Exploring Women's Suffrage through 50 Historic > Treasures _features a remarkable array of objects and an expansive > view of what constitutes both material culture and suffrage history. > From towns to cuckoo clocks and cookbooks to cars, the book offers a > diverse range of objects to tell a diverse range of stories. Jenkins > is a curator and her text, structured like an exhibition, offers a > variegated vision of American suffrage history, illustrated by fifty > objects. Written for a general audience, as well as museum > professionals, the text is both an introduction to the American > suffrage movement and a demonstration of the variety of objects that > can be used to tell new and old suffrage stories. Material culture > scholars may lament the lack of direct engagement with material > sources, but the book's real strength is in its array of objects and > celebration of small, regional collections and public institutions. > _Exploring Women's Suffrage _insists that local archives can tell > national stories and that making these connections deepens and > enriches our understanding of the texture of suffrage history. > > Jenkins's text is neither a chronological survey nor a text organized > around specific forms of material culture. Instead, _Exploring > Women's Suffrage _is structured around nine themes intended to give > an introduction to the contours of the suffrage movement, a narrative > that Jenkins stretches from the late eighteenth century to 2017. > These themes--"Early Years"; "Organizations"; "Symbols"; "Consumer > Culture"; "Allies"; "Roadblocks and Setbacks"; "Tactics and Public > Demonstrations"; "Milestones"; and "Legacy"--work to show the > multilevel operation of suffrage politics, placing local and regional > stories alongside national narratives. Each thematic section is > broken into short chapters, snapshots illustrated by a single object. > These snapshots often do not engage with the objects themselves, but > use them to connect to a broader story. A crazy quilt sparks a story > about the proliferation of state-level suffrage organizations and the > particular efforts of the Kansas Equal Suffrage Association; a > Norwegian headdress and vest illustrates a chapter on the first > national suffrage parade in 1913, presenting both the internal > variety of the parade and its organizers' interests in unified > spectacle, resulting in exclusionary tactics along lines of race and > class. The total effect is kaleidoscopic, unsettling tidy narrative > arcs and nestling conventional objects alongside singular ones. This > intentional strategy may make the text useful for teachers or other > educational professionals interested in curating their own > selections, but it can undermine close engagement with specific > material strategies or rigorous outlining of each object's context. > > The fragmentation of the text does make an implicit argument. This is > not _a_ story, but a collection of stories. In that way, it is > responsive to broader historiographic shifts in suffrage scholarship. > The field of suffrage history has been changing over the last forty > years, though it is still often framed in relation to the narrative > established by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and other > leaders of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). > This received narrative is overwhelmingly white and middle-class and > focused on institutional politics, drawing a straight line from the > Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 to the ratification of the Nineteenth > Amendment in 1920. Jenkins's text is part of a historiographic trend > away from these totalizing narratives and toward a history of > pluralism, disagreement, and diversity. From Rosalyn Terborg-Penn's > pioneering work on Black women's suffrage activism to Cathleen > Cahill's and Martha S. Jones's recent texts, historians are > increasingly pointing not only to the racism of the mainstream, white > movement, but also to the essential labors of women of color in > reshaping the meanings of the vote and the possibilities for women in > politics and public space.[1] There has also been a general move to > re-periodize, orienting histories away from the teleological > progression from Seneca Falls to ratification. Instead, scholars have > moved toward an expanded view that stretches back into the eighteenth > century to grasp the roots of the liberal, rights-based theories that > early suffragists claimed, and forward into the twentieth century to > articulate the failures of the Nineteenth Amendment to secure the > rights of women of color, who continued to face discrimination and > exclusion in the Jim Crow era. Jenkins's work reinforces this > salutary trend by acknowledging and exploring the racism of white > women's suffrage work, celebrating underrepresented ways in which > women of color advocated for themselves within and outside of the > movement, toggling back and forth between the national and the local, > and reaching beyond the boundaries of 1848 and 1920. > > Jenkins foregrounds the notion that multiple publics can access > history through material culture. She argues that "people connect > with recognizable items," making the case for displaying the > everyday, often overlooked aspects of suffrage material culture (p. > xvi). Jenkins's work is laudatory for its democratic tastes and it, > in turn, demonstrates the integration of suffrage politics into > almost every arena of life. This collection of material objects is a > welcome entry into the field of suffrage material culture; although > there is a plethora of information on the visual culture of American > suffrage and the movement's embrace of consumer culture, there is a > dearth of scholarship on the dizzying array of material strategies > and tangible objects that American suffragists employed, made, > collected, and debated over.[2] While there is yet to be a > thoroughgoing analysis of the ways objects helped construct, mediate, > and display individual and group identities within the movement, this > book is a tantalizing compendium for scholars interested in > addressing this lack. The sections on symbols and consumer culture > deal most explicitly with objects, but there are many opportunities > for more direct engagement. For example, a banner reading "Factory > Workers" and featuring an icon of a sewing machine illustrates a > chapter on the often fractious and tenuous alliances between > mainstream suffrage organizing and the labor movement. The banner > itself, carried in a National Suffrage Day parade in Hartford, CT, > might provide a window into these complicated dynamics. Who made > these banners? How was their labor remunerated? How were women's > relationships to textile production classed and how did the suffrage > movement navigate these differences? The specific textures of > cross-class organizing might appear in finer detail with a focus on > the materiality of these ubiquitous banners. > > American suffragists constructed themselves, their politics, and > their images in fascinatingly material ways, and there are arguments > about the nature of those material strategies embedded within > Jenkins's text. One of Jenkins's early chapters is illustrated by the > table upon which the Declaration of Sentiments was drafted in 1848. > This table was gifted first to Elizabeth Cady Stanton and later to > Susan B. Anthony (who was not present at the Seneca Falls Convention > where the Declaration was presented and formalized). After Anthony's > death, NAWSA kept the table with a copy of the Declaration pasted to > its underside. Jenkins recounts that, upon the passage of the > Nineteenth Amendment, the Smithsonian displayed the table in an > exhibition celebrating the suffrage victory. Jenkins writes, "by > placing it on view, the institution made clear that this was not just > another old table but an extraordinary piece of history" (p. 20). > Jenkins's implicit argument is clear here: one cannot always tell > that an object bears a suffrage story. It is the responsibility of > institutions, curators, and scholars to bring out the stories hidden > within the seemingly everyday. Suffragists embraced spectacle and > symbolism and Jenkins chronicles aspects of that history, but she > also shows that conventional, mundane objects are equally essential > to telling suffrage stories. These objects can nuance our connection > to dominant suffrage histories and render tangible our understanding > of less publicized ones, such as suffragists' allegiances with > boosters in the gold-mining West, efforts to establish an exclusively > white movement in the South, and lunchrooms for working-class women > opened by socialites in New York (all documented in Jenkins' text). > > Through the structure and tone of her book, Jenkins is a clear > advocate for the power of material objects to help viewers connect to > histories that can feel abstract, distant, and opaque. Her prose is > approachable and clear (aside from a few jarring copyediting errors, > including the repeated misspelling of Barack Obama's name). The book > is aimed at the general reader, but sits in conversation with > historiographic trends in suffrage scholarship to present the > movement as one fraught with contradictions, disagreements, and > inadequacies. But the text bears its own tensions as well. Jenkins is > working both to examine the failings of the movement and to look > hopefully ahead to the fulfillment of its legacy. Her final entry > examines Adelaide Johnson's _Portrait Monument to Lucretia Mott, > Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan. B. Anthony,_ sculpted in 1920 and > stored out of view before its placement in the Capitol Building's > Rotunda in 1997. This marble sculpture tells many stories, but > Jenkins ends with a consideration of it as an unfinished invitation > to the future. In the contrast between the smoothly shaped busts of > Mott, Stanton, and Anthony, the solid marble of the base, and the > rough protrusion behind the three figures, Jenkins reads the legacy > of the past and hope for the future. She goes on to list women > elected to office over the last one hundred years, rhetorically > adding their names to the monument. She writes: "among those elected > were women who identify as Native American, Latino, black, white, > Asian American, immigrants, and refugees. Johnson's _Portrait > Monument _represents all these women and encourages more to add their > names" (p. 262). It's a false note at the book's close, a hopeful > gloss on a monument that reveals the expensive, institutional, and > undeniably material ways in which white suffragists cast themselves > as the center of the movement. Instead, the monumental white marble > might offer an opportunity to meditate upon the persistence of white > supremacist narratives, the continuing solidity of their presence in > contemporary life. > > There is a meta-narrative shimmering through Jenkins's text and > material culture scholars should work to draw it out. How have these > objects been used to tell exclusive stories? How can material > histories allow us to see those processes and unsettle those > narratives? Suffragists themselves worked as lay curators and > archivists, seeking to direct public memory through their careful > management and display of objects. Susan B. Anthony used the > Declaration of Sentiments table in an effort to amplify the > importance of Seneca Falls and materialize her own connection to the > movement's "origins."[3] Johnson's sculpture is another entry into > this history of mythmaking. Efforts to represent suffrage history > through objects have often obscured as much as they revealed. > Jenkins's text works to insert new stories into the canon and to > reframe old ones, but perhaps its most important message is the > reminder of the key role that archives, museums, and other collecting > institutions play in constructing what we remember and how we > remember it. > > Notes > > [1]. Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, _African American Women in the Struggle > for the Vote, 1850-1920_ (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, > 1998); Cathleen Cahill, _Recasting the Vote: How Women of Color > Transformed the Suffrage Movement_ (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2020); > Martha S. Jones, _Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the > Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All_ (New York: Basic Books, > 2020). > > [2]. Allison Lange, _Picturing Political Power: Images in the Women's > Suffrage Movement_ (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020); Mary > Chapman, _Making Noise, Making News; Suffrage Print Culture and U.S. > Modernism_ (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014); Margaret Mary > Finnegan, _Selling Suffrage: Consumer Culture and Votes for Women_ > (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999). Kenneth Florey also has > an encyclopedic compendium of suffrage memorabilia: Kenneth Florey, > _Women's Suffrage Memorabilia_ (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, Inc., > 2013). Susan Ware's _Why They Marched _is perhaps the closest analog > to Jenkins's text, itself a sampler platter of stories and objects > that aims to diversify our suffrage narratives and make them > tangible. Susan Ware, _Why They Marched: Untold Stories of the Women > Who Fought for the Right to Vote_ (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of > Harvard University Press, 2019). > > [3]. The table was one of the objects preserved when Anthony and her > biographer, Ida Harper Husted, destroyed many of the materials > Anthony had collected over the years after finishing the sixth volume > of the _History of Woman Suffrage_, a tome that emphasized NAWSA's > (and Anthony's) role in the long history of the suffrage movement. > When displayed at the Smithsonian, the table's caption suggested that > Anthony had been the original owner of the table and, thus, had been > present at the writing of the Declaration of Sentiments. Lisa > Tetrault describes the importance of this object to Anthony's grip > over the public narrative in Lisa Tetrault, _The Myth of Seneca > Falls: Memory and the Women's Suffrage Movement, 1848-1898_ (Chapel > Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014). > > Citation: Mariah R. Gruner. Review of Jenkins, Jessica D., _Exploring > Women's Suffrage through 50 Historic Treasures_. H-Material-Culture, > H-Net Reviews. April, 2021. > URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=55894 > > 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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