This biography is really informative, and well written. Diane Eickhoff recounts the life and fight for women's rights of Clarina Nichols. Through Clarina's life, Diane Eickhoff also portrays how women were living at that time, their rights, their lack of rights, as well as their difficulties. ( )

I don't know much about the women's right's movement. I should know a lot more, being a women, but I don't. And I admitably probably take our rights for granted, while complaining about how the boy's get favored where I work all the time, even though there are 5 times as many girls, and we do 99% of the same heavy lifting that the boys do.

This book, to me, is more a book about the women's rights movement then about Clarina herself, though naturally, since the book is named after her, there is a lot about her, too, but it's mostly about her role in the women's movements, then about her life as a whole (for example, the author talks a lot about Clarina's first marriage, but everything she writes about the marriage she relates to Clarina's future role in the movement). I wish there was more about Clarina's personal life, but the focus of the book isn't about that.

I was greatly surprised & interested in read about how in some small way, the women's right movement started in Worcester, which is where my husband grew up & my in-law's still live!

I also thought it was very cool that Clarina, a lifelong knitter, received yarn from her fans, after helping a woman on the train to keep her children!

I am only giving the book four stars, because (like I said) I wish there was more info about her personal life, but also because after a while, all of her talks and speeches and the various organizations she belonged to started to run together in my head... ( )

The life of women’s right crusader Clarina Nichols is the focus of “Revolutionary Heart” by editor-turned-historian Diane Eickhoff. Through Nichols life, we not only see the accomplishments of a very determined woman but also see the history of the three great antebellum reform movements.

The life of Clarina Nichols begins at one end of the country (Vermont) to the other (California), but a very important part of her life was spent in helping settle and attempt to influence the formation of the State of Kansas. Eickhoff using recovered sources that had not been known of since Nichols’ death in 1885, brings Nichol life in an entertaining and engaging manner that keeps the reader manner. Eickhoff follows Nichols’ life growing up in Vermont and her troublesome first marriage that helped focus her crusading efforts in the antebellum women’s right movement that was launched by circumstances in her second marriage. While detailing Nichols’ efforts on women’s rights, Eickhoff makes it a point to show Nichol’s as a mother not just as an aside but as one of the main themes throughout the book. And through Nichols, Eickhoff helped bring into the focus how the three major antebellum reform movements—abolition, suffrage, and temperance—were interwoven with one another for a 30 year period.

“Revolutionary Heart” pacts a lot of material in 277 pages in a well-written biography of an under-recognized leader of the early women’s rights movement in the 1850s thanks not only to Eickhoff’s writing but also her background of editing. The life and work of Clarina Nichols helps give context to the 1850s and 1860s when the popular view focuses on slavery and the Civil War. I highly recommend this book for anyone wanting to learn more about the early women’s right movement.

I received a free copy of this book through Goodreads First Reads program. ( )

This is non-fiction history written at its best. Revolutionary Heart is both well researched and skillfully written to keep the reader's attention. And if you live in Vermont, Kansas, or northern California you have an additional reason to read this book because Clarina has roots in your part of the country.

This is a history of an intelligent woman who moved west, lived through the Civil War, and associated with leaders of the women's suffrage movement. She was thus a witness to the cutting edge of mid-nineteen century American life. And as it turns out, she also left a trail of published newspaper articles and copies of letters to her friends and associates that have survived until today.

I recommend this book to anyone who has interest in the history of the Civil War era, the American western expansion, the women's suffrage movement, or the lives of ordinary Americans who lived over 100 years ago.

In terms of full disclosure, I am a personal acquaintance of the author. I read the book in January, 2006, soon after it was published ( )