Customer Reviews

Other Powers: The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism, and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

What an absolute joy of a book. Goldsmith seems to have found the perfect centerof the femininist storm in Victoria Woodhull, an outspoken advocate of women's rights, free love, and spiritualism. The telling of her tale (and this book reads like a plotted novel) involves the inclusion of tales and talk from Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Henry Ward Beecher, President Ulysses S. Grant, Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, and cameo appearances from a host of others (including the prudish New York City "in"fighter, Anthony Comstock). Much of the telling involves the infamous Tilton-Beecher scandal, a story whose recitation touches on much of the post-Civil War atmosphere of spiritualism,financial skullduggery, the new religious practices of revised Calvinism, and, of course, equal rights for women. This is a fascinating read and wonderfully written. You don't need to be a history buff to pick this up.

Goldsmith has done a real service with this book. It is more or less the history of the 19th-century women's suffrage movement, with special emphasis on the influence of Spiritualism and on the life of Victoria Woodhull (of whom I had never before heard, even though I regard myself as fairly well-versed in American history).

The book is full of fascinating characters and events, most of which are given unconscionably short shrift in our educational system. Goldsmith fleshes out the stories and personalities of many people who were previously just vague images in my mind, such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Henry Ward Beecher. It seems from this book that female suffrage could have occurred as much as 50 years earlier than it did, if it hadn't been for a couple of missteps on the part of the supporters of suffrage. For one thing, there was a bitter division among the suffragettes about whether the female right to vote should be part of the movement for enfranchising the recently freed slaves. Sadly, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, despite her many wonderful and even heroic contributions to the movement, comes across as an out-and-out racist on this issue, and probably damaged the very cause to which she devoted her life. Secondly, some of the foremost spokespeople for female suffrage got caught up in unrelated, controversial issues, and even in personal sexual scandals.

If you have an interest in American history, you may very well have the same reaction I did while reading this book. Almost every other page, I found myself exclaiming, "Hey, I didn't know that! How come that's not in any of the history books?"

The only reason I gave this book four stars instead of five is that I think the organization and focus could be a little better. The book isn't organized strictly chronologically, and it jumps from one character to another without apparent reason.

But there's just too much really good stuff here to give anything less than four stars, and I have no quarrel with those who have given it five. You won't often pick up a book written for a general audience and learn so many interesting facts that you probably didn't know.

This is a terrific read -- fast paced, racy, with an unbelievable cast of actual historical characters dealing with issues like free love and marriage. Meticulously researched, it provides a more complete picture of the lives of both ordinary and leading women and the strictures of 19th century polite and not-so-polite society than most historical books I've read. I have found it very difficult to put down. It has provided me with a picture of the 1800's, women's lives and the struggle for women's rights that I was very ignorant about before. I wasn't really interested in the topic of women's issues until I started to read this book, but it has opened my eyes to how far we have come, where some of our society's problems are rooted, and how far we have to go.

This book was first recommended to me by a Church of Christ pastor who was into history. He said,"You've got to read this book! You'll love it!" He was right! As a Spiritualist, I had heard of Victoria Woodhull, but that was about it. This is a complete, researched biography that goes beyond biography. It gives a picture of an age of searching, inquiry and intellectual activity that most Americans are not aware of. Victoria Woodhull is a fascinating character, emerging from very poor beginnings to become involved in the feminist movement, being a spiritual medium, a part-time hooker and eventually becoming involved in politics. She ends up being in a very conventional marriage to an Englishman and leading a very respectable life. No, she never won the presidency, but the reader will learn a lot about the cultural development of America in the 19th century from reading this book.

This book is huge at 560 pgs; of course, i guess that's nothing compared to these past couple Harry Potters so perhaps i should just say, "substantial." It covers literally Woodhull's entire life (and a good deal of her sister's, Tennessee Claflin), as well as offering am in-depth view of the political and social climate at the time. It devotes a particular amount of time to the changing nuances of her "free love" doctrine and other participants in that movement (one which was, most certainly, ahead of its time--we don't generally think of Victorian times and Free Love in the same boat these days), and the Beecher-Tilton adultery trial.

I found the book to be facinating from a suffrage-history POV, contrasting events depicted/documented within with my memories of the "women's movement" from history classes. Goldsmith isn't afraid to throw stones (mostly by quoting their own less than tolerant words) at suffrage icons Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B Anthony, and others, in the course of depicting an unbiased view of the debate that raged for both women's and black men's suffrage at the time. She is both sympathetic to Victoria and Tennessee (she does a very good job in depicting the bizarre, abusive, nomadic carnival-like nature of their childhoods and family life while growing up), and willing to point out their flaws and transgressions (both women engaged in prostitution, blackmail, and other acts of "questionable ethics").

There's not as much focus on the Spiritualism movement, though the overview is thorough and the author depicts in great detail the ways in which Victoria and Tennessee were involved in it as trance speakers and predictors of the future, both from a very young age. She presents the oracles and visions and claims of spiritualists without passing judgement on them, though it's hard not to do so onesself as a modern skeptic reader--the descriptions of Victoria's frequent "possession" by spirit guides, particularly when speaking in public and in other stressful situations, coupled with her traumatic childhood, are reminiscent of depictions of modern dissociative identity disorders.

To read the book as a modern woman is somewhat horrific; one can't help but think along the lines of "what would I have done back then," when Anthony Comstock was arresting people for even discussing contraception and women were considered the property of their husbands. Goldsmith investigates a lot of related issues, giving brief synopses of cases of abortionists, midwives, spinsters-by-choice, servant-class mothers of illegitimate children who were imprisoned for "infanticide" when their babies died in childbirth...ugh. Horrible reading, but important.

All in all a facinating overview of activism, alternative spirituality, and the tumultuous political climate of post-civil-war America, centered around the life story of the country's first female Presidential candidate.

I picked this book after an hour of looking online at different books. I needed a book for a class book report. WOW did I pick a winner. The authors decade of research definitely proves worthy. I felt at times I was walking with Victoria Woodhull. This book really gets into your head. The way the author ties everyones lives together with effortless fluidity will take your breath away. All the characters cover the entire spectrum of the human spirit in a way that will make you want to read this book over and over until you have every morsel memorized.

Especially suitable for those *not* already fascinated by this period of history or these characters, and a must for those who are.

Having majored in women's studies, I've read a lot about this period, including 2 other biographies of Woodhull, and most such books are only for those intent on researching Woodhull, suffragist history, etc. Other Powers is far more readably and dramatically presented. It also brings together the histories of the women's movement, spiritualism, anti-slavery politics, and a host of prominent characters to paint a picture of the time, events, and people far more illuminating than any other book I've read. Goldsmith's painstaking creation of a 400 page chronology (which of course is not in the book) paid off exactly as she'd planned: "People who seemed in the books I'd read to dwell in separate worlds could now be seen as parts of a larger drama".

People would not think of history as dull if all histories were written this well.

Yes, the book centers around Woodhull and Suffrage, but that's not its real power. Many historical books stick narrowly to their subjects and don't give you a picture of the times.

Other Powers is fantastic because it ties the Suffrage movement into much of what was going on in the U.S. at that moment of history. From Black equality to Wall Street, Goldsmith shows how the relationships between many issues, people and influences worked in concert to create a major part of U.S. history.

Bravo and hats off to Ms. Goldsmith for her exhaustive research into 19th century America from a woman's perspective. She brilliantly weaves the sordid web of characters around perhaps the most controversial, Victoria Woodhull. The most disturbing aspect of this work is that it recounts real events and paints a tragic picture of women as nothing more than mere property of men. Though women were the oppressed sex, Goldsmith reveals that in the arenas of politics, blackmail, controversy, and love men and women were every bit equals. The 19th century of Woodhull, Stanton, Anthony, Beecher, and Tilton (to name just a few) was as scandalous, political, and money-driven as this century where names like Lewinsky, Jones, Tripp, Clinton, and Starr dominate the headlines. A riveting ride through a very scandalous, salacious period in our history, this book should be required reading for any 19th century American history class.

When I chose to read this book, I had expected to read a biography of Victoria Woodhull. That is exactly what I got, with all the excitement, history and debauchery that was the Victorian Era. Ms. Woodhull was involved in some of the most scandalous events of that era (e.g. The Beecher-Tilton Scandal) and Barbara Goldsmith did a wonderful job of presenting the facts. I learned more about that time in history from Ms. Goldsmith's book than I have from any history book. I can't wait for more!