Customer Reviews

Winning the Vote: The Triumph of the American Woman Suffrage Movement

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

 

 

Bob Cooney's wonderful book is an unparalleled pictorial overview of the American suffrage movement, one of very few histories to present both NAWSA and National Woman's Party activities. The degree to which suffragists utilized all the communication media available to them is readily apparent in the range of items Cooney reveals, from broadsides to posters, pins, sandwich boards, apparel, etc. etc. Many of the photographs and illustrations Cooney uses have not heretofore been visible outside archival collections around the country. The balance between graphics and text makes Winning the Vote accessible to young readers as well as adult readers. Even scholars will appreciate some of the rare posters and broadsides.

It's pricey in either the original hardcover or special slipcased edition but either way a volume to be treasured as well as a collector's item.

Watch out - this book will grab you! It is much more than the inspiring story of the 72-year-battle by American women to win the right to vote. It is a visual feast. Every page has something to offer: campaign buttons ("I cast my first vote"), political cartoons ("How can she vote, when the fashions are so wide and the voting booths are so narrow?"), caricatures ("Vote for the Celebrated Man Tamer"), posters, fliers, picture post cards, and even the cover of Life Magazine. Everything is laid out in gorgeous color and black and white reproductions. Photographs jump off the pages: thousands of women marching in parades across the country, white-clothed suffragists selling pennants in Long Beach, CA, proper ladies gluing up suffrage posters in Ohio.
The author's meticulous research adds to the value of this treasury. The leaders of the suffrage movement are highlighted: Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, and Alice Paul. But, the ordinary women are also featured: casting their votes in Wyoming in 1888, giving speeches out west, and picketing the Senate and the White House. Memorable moments are captured: Susan B. Anthony's indictment for daring to vote in 1873, Inez Milholland on a white horse leading the Washington D. C. suffrage parade in 1913, women carried off in paddy wagons for picketing, and, finally, suffragists celebrating victory on August 26, 1920 when the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was enacted.
This is the story of the longest war: 72 years from whispered start to triumphant end. Decades during which no one was killed, no shots were fired, no ships were sunk, no bombs exploded. Just women, working to convince men in every way they could imagine to give them the vote. How did they do it? Read this book and find out.

I first saw this book on a display table at a League of Women Voters meeting in Green Bay, WI and knew instantly it was a "must have"-----purchasing it for my wife as a Valentine Day's gift. Since then we have been enjoying this remarkably detailed history of the seventy plus year battle by women for the right to vote. This is not a quick-read, but rather a book you keep close at hand (on our coffee table)to read, if only for a few minutes at a time, to appreciate the dedication of Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the many lesser known women who dedicated their lives to the suffrage movement.

This is, not just a highly informative book, but its color and black and white reproductions make it a pleasure to read and hard to put down. One comes back to it again and again to more fully appreciate the details of the long, great effort by American women to win the "right to vote". Check out the book from your Public Library; you will be highly tempted to get your own copy.