During the antebellum era, women were prominent participants in the abolition movement that transformed America. For many of them, their activism underscored their own inferior status in America society, which they were increasingly determined to address. From this emerged the first movement in America dedicated to gaining equal rights for women, one that would ultimately focus on winning the right for women to vote. Ellen Carol DuBois’s book is about the birth of this movement in the middle decades of the 19th century. In it she chronicles the growing dedication of women activists to the cause, the different measures they pursued, and how these early results culminated in the founding of not just one but two national organizations committed to the cause of women’s suffrage.

To chart the course of this evolution, DuBois begins by detailing the growing discontent of women with their lack of rights in the years leading up to the Civil War. As she explains, the activism of many women in the antebellum reform movements of the era called into question the idea that women had a domestic “sphere” to which they should limit their activities. Often, public issues intruded upon the home, and many women perceived the need for public engagement in order to address them. For others, moral outrage over injustices such as slavery motivated women to participate in efforts to restrict or end slavery. Yet the limitations imposed by their domestic responsibilities and their lack of political power soon highlighted for many of them the need to expand their focus to demand their own equality as well.

While these demands were met sympathetically by many within the abolitionist movement, for the most part they remained subordinated to their original cause of ending slavery. The closer they got to that goal, however, the more the issue of women’s suffrage emerged as a source of division. The split took place in the aftermath of the Civil War, as anti-slavery leaders sought to crown their success with the enfranchisement of Blacks. Any hopes that women had that their own enfranchisement would be coupled with this, however, were dashed by the desire of proponents of Black suffrage to minimize any possible objections to their efforts.

This caused a split among the ranks of women activists. While some of them reluctantly conceded the postponement of women’s suffrage and remained committed to the Republican Party’s reform efforts, others – most notably Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton – explored other options for winning the vote. This included an ill-judged association in a Kansas state referenda campaign with Democrats eager to exploit the issue as a means of blunting Republican enfranchisement efforts, as well as efforts to forge an alliance with labor organizations before settling on what would prove to be the most enduring solution. This was the creation in 1869 of an independent organization, the National Women’s Suffrage Association, that would be controlled by women and campaign for women’s right to vote to the exclusion of any other goal.

The establishment of the NWSA began a new phase in the campaign for women’s suffrage, one that would culminate in the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment over a half-century later. While the story of this larger effort lies outside of the scope of DuBois’s book, what she provides is a wonderfully lucid account of what led women to establish what was the first national feminist organization. To do so she delves into the details of local campaigns and organizational infighting, explaining the decisions they made and how their consequences ultimately led women to take what was an enormously radical and uncertain step. It’s a story that should be read by anyone interested in learning how women took charge of their fight for the vote, as well as the broader history of feminism and the political struggle for rights in mid-19th century America. ( )

I haven't read this whole book, but am citing it in an entry for the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Motherhood essay I am writing. The few bits of this book I have read have been eye-opening and brilliant. I hope to figure out a way to incorporate this into my future (not-yet-scheduled) PhD on feminist organizations. It has also been cited in other books I'm reading for the essay. A wonderful examination of the racism that divided the suffrage movement and why two veteran abolitionists (E.Cady Stanton & S.B. Anthony) would resort to racism to win women's suffrage.