Writing about Women's Suffrage

I started a blog on women in history over on wordpress.com. Frankly, I wish I had started it here at blogger, but I was experimenting with the platform. Nevertheless, the blog has sort of taken off. A friend from long ago, who I reconnected with on Facebook, asked if she could write for it and of course I said yes. Her area of expertise is in British royalty. And I do mean expertise. Although she has never worked as an historian, her degree is in history and she has read extensively over the years in her area of interest. Me - I'm all over the map. I just love history! I read a little of this and that. Lately I have been reading American History specifically about the women's suffrage movement, so I pulled this book back off the shelf. It's an excellent book for those interested in the time period from the 1840s up to about 1900. It does not cover the last wave of suffragists such as Alice Paul and Lucy Burns who brought it home. Here's a minimal review I wrote at Goodreads. Check out the book if you're interested in the time period.

If you want to check out my blog on women's history here it is - Saints, Sisters, and Sluts.

Other Powers: The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism, and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull by Barbara Goldsmith
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've read this book twice, because I enjoyed it so much. I would say it is more a history book than a biography although I put it in both categories. Victoria Woodhull appears throughout the book, but the main focus is on the suffrage and spiritualism movements. You become acquainted with other personalities that are important in this period in history such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Henry Ward Beecher, Harriot Beecher Stowe, among others. Definitely a good choice if you're interested in this period in American History or women's issues.

Of particular interest to me is the history of women's suffrage in the United States. Although women spoke out for their rights prior to 1848, many mark the Seneca Falls Woman's Convention as the beginning of the fight for women's suffrage. It took 70 long years and only one of the signers of the "Declaration of Sentiments" at the convention lived to see the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920.

The people involved in the suffrage movement were often involved in other reform movements such as abolition and temperance, and were very diverse. This created conflicts of both personality and conscience making for a very interesting read.

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