Revolutionary Heart: The Life of Clarina Nichols and the Pioneering Crusade for Women's Rights [Paperback]

Diane Eickhoff (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2006

Clarina Nichols (1810-1885) was set apart from other 19th century women activists—both physically and emotionally. As one of the few feminists to follow the nation’s westward expansion, Nichols was separated from the women’s movement just as it began to flourish under the leadership of Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and other Easterners. Unlike many activists, Nichols personally experienced some of the most troubling heartbreaks and hardships that a married woman of her day could know. This hard-won knowledge led her to sacrifice both health and financial well-being to right the wrongs that were tolerated in her time. Driven by a deep inner need to end the mistreatment of women, Clarina Nichols left the comforts of her Vermont home and moved West to the wild frontier of "Bleeding Kansas," where her sons fought alongside John Brown and she helped shaped the state’s new Constitution to free slaves and give women rights they had no where else in America. Now—for the first time—the story of Clarina Nichols comes alive thanks to Diane Eickhoff, whose meticulous, six-year quest to collect and analyze Nichols’s scattered writings and papers has yielded a richer understanding of this remarkable pioneer. Revolutionary Heart: The Life of Clarina Nichols and the Pioneering Crusade for Women’s Rights is an original piece of scholarship praised by academic historians, yet it is written for general readers, like the thousands of people who have heard Eickhoff perform Nichols’s speeches at chautauquas and other humanities events. Amply illustrated, with detailed notes and an appendix that includes a concise history of the early women’s movement, Revolutionary Heart is more than an engaging biography; it is a window into an unjustly overlooked period in American history about the three great 19th century reform movements—abolition, women’s rights and temperance.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Clarina Nichols's name may not spring to mind as quickly as Susan B. Anthony's when people think about women's suffrage, but Nichols's work on the lecture circuit and as a newspaper columnist helped shape public opinion and pave the way for the passage of the 19th amendment. This fine biography takes advantage of newly discovered documentation of Nichols's life, which she, to her later regret, did not preserve for posterity in memoirs. After escaping a troubled early marriage, Nichols married a newspaper publisher in Vermont and soon took over the business. From its pages she argued for women's rights, abolition and temperance-the other great movements of her era-and her articles won her notice and a place in Anthony's circle. Despite Nichols's success as a speaker and public figure in the East, she felt the pull of the frontier and took her family to Kansas and later California, where her story takes on the less unique flavor of the pioneer tale. Eickhoff writes fluently, but also liberally quotes Nichols's columns and letters, allowing readers to get a taste of her eloquence as well as her progressive views. Though gaps in her story remain and what is known is not necessarily the stuff of legend, readers interested in history and women's rights will be glad to have learned about Nichols, a charismatic figure who had fallen out of history's sight for so long.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

In the pantheon of pioneers of the early feminist movement, the name Clarina Nichols deserves to be placed next to those of such luminaries as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, yet most history books fail to mention the contributions of this indefatigable worker for the cause of women's rights, especially those of married women. At a time when they were legally considered nonexistent, women who were widowed or divorced frequently found themselves denied of all rights and access to property, income, and even their own children. Having suffered such indignities firsthand, Nichols overcame her own tragedies to become an eloquent journalist and passionate public speaker on issues of temperance and abolition as well as women's rights--one who could captivate audiences with true-life anecdotes, quick-witted arguments, and fervent pleas for justice. Filled with excerpts from Nichols' own writings, Eickhoff's exhaustive research and extensive scholarship results in a sweeping biography of this little-known but undeniably courageous champion of human rights. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 277 pages
• Publisher: Quindaro Press (March 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0976443449
• ISBN-13: 978-0976443445
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #898,414 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful!, May 2, 2006

By 

Armchair Interviews (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Revolutionary Heart: The Life of Clarina Nichols and the Pioneering Crusade for Women's Rights (Paperback)

Subtitled: The Life of Clarina Nichols and the Pioneering Crusade for Women's Rights

With great embarrassment I must admit I had no more than a fleeting knowledge of what the women's suffragist movement was all about. Reaching adulthood in the early 1970s, I was more familiar with that era's movement to garner equal pay for equal work. Little did I know the wheels had been set in motion more than a hundred years earlier.

Revolutionary Heart details the life of Clarina Nichols, an educated Vermont native with a flair for journalism and public speaking. Through records of Mrs. Nichol's writings and speeches, Diane Eickhoff has pieced together the early history of women's rights in America.

I marvel at the courage, strength and determination of Clarina Nichols, who has been overshadowed in history books by her better-known contemporary Susan B. Anthony. Both women challenged the issues of their day regarding slavery, temperance and women's rights. All at a time when women had no rights. No right to own property, no right to be awarded custody of children in the rare event of divorce, and no right to vote.

The author has written a beautiful biography of this woman who was no stranger to hardship. She divorced one husband and buried another. Her courage and determination carried her from the comforts of her Vermont home to the rugged terrains of Wisconsin, Kansas and ultimately California. By her intellect and wit, Mrs. Nichols was a welcome speaker and journalist who was clearly instrumental in bringing about change.

In one of my favorite passages, Mrs. Nichols addressed the accusation that women's rights leaders wanted to "wear the pants in the family." It reads: She said that though she bought the dress she wore with her own money, her husband by law owned it, not of his own will, but by a "law adopted by bachelors and other women's husbands." She said she didn't think it was fair for men to tease women about wanting to wear men's pants until men had given up their right to own women's skirts.

It is with gratitude that I reflect on the hardships many endured to assure women equal rights under the law. With heartfelt appreciation, I thank the author for bringing this important woman's story to light.

Armchair Interviews agrees.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Appreciate What We Have, May 22, 2007

By 

Lisa Shea "medieval swordfighting enthusiast" - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Revolutionary Heart: The Life of Clarina Nichols and the Pioneering Crusade for Women's Rights (Paperback)

Most women in modern times have a vague idea that things are "better" now than before - and that a few spots on the globe still present issues for humans who are born female. Sometimes it really helps to look back at a biography and realize how MUCH better things are now than before. Revolutionary Heart by Diane Eickhoff is one of those wake-up calls.

Revolutionary Heart tells the story of Clarina Nichols, born in a quiet town in Vermont in 1810. Her family is relatively well off and educates her - something rare for females of her time. Dutifully, she marries and attempts to settle down to the quiet life of a homemaker. But fate has other things in store for her.

Like many women throughout history, Clarina is not provided with a good husband. He squanders their money, and she is forced to work multiple jobs to keep them from starving to death. Even though she is earning all the money, and saving the family assets, the laws of the time say that the husband controls everything. Clarina hears this from friends and family all around her. The woman can slave from morning to night bringing in earnings - and the husband has full rights to spend it all on booze and gambling. If he dies from his excesses, she literally can be left with nothing. Clarina gets a divorce only years before her husband dies, and struggles to regain a footing for her family.

Soon Clarina has found a much more worthy husband, one who publishes a paper and both supports the family and supports her due rights as a contributing member. He lets her run the paper, and her works are highly praised. Soon she is lecturing around the country about the rights of women. These are rights we take for granted in modern times. The right of a woman to escape an abusive partner. The right of a woman to have at least a chance of custody of her children. The rights of a widow to have some access to the assets of the family, when her husband dies.

Clarina did not choose an easy life. She trudges through mud in Kansas. She risks life and limb going to speak in states that are full of violence. She in fact does not live to see the day when women are allowed, finally, to vote. In her world, women are not sent to school because their little brains are not capable of learning. A female doctor? Hah! Women could never understand anatomy and other issues involved in medical science. Women are only supposed to cook and clean.

On one hand this is a biography - it tells of the life and times of Clarina Nichols. But really, the book is written in a very moving and involving way. I read right throught he book, wanting to know what happened and spellbound at the hardships our ancestors struggled through. This isn't just the story of one woman who often risked it all to help convey her message. It is a reminder to all humans in our modern times of just how recently it was that entire blocks of humanity - blacks, females, non-land-owning white males - were denied the very basic rights. We take a lot for granted in our modern world. It's time we step back and realize just how precarious our position is - and how, if not for the daring steps taking by a few people - we could easily be in a position of complete helplessness, being condemned to a state that thousands of years worth of people were trapped in.

It's worth it to take a moment, each day, to give thanks that we were born in a time where we do have rights - and to reach out to support and help others who even now were unfortunate enough to be born in a location which denies them what we enjoy so easily.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a model for us all, June 21, 2006

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Barbara Watkinswestwood "barbara watkins" - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Revolutionary Heart: The Life of Clarina Nichols and the Pioneering Crusade for Women's Rights (Paperback)

Clarina Nichols was one of the nation's most amazing women of the Civil War Era--or any era. Any of the hats that she wore--crusading newspaper editor in Vermont, temperance lecturer and political activist in four states, pioneer abolitionist and Underground Railroad conductor in "Bleeding Kansas," and defender of abused women--would be more than a lifetime of work for most people. Diane Eickhoff's superbly researched and presented biography Revolutionary Heart: The Life of Clarina Nichols And the Pioneering Crusade for Women's Rights shows us how far we have come in 150 years--largely due to the heroic efforts of women such as Nichols and Eickhoff herself!