Mr. President, How Long Must We Wait? by Tina Cassidy

MR. PRESIDENT, HOW LONG MUST WE WAIT? by Tina Cassidy is a work of non-fiction which cleverly describes the historic actions of Alice Paul and Woodrow Wilson and the subsequent adoption of the 19th Amendment, an event whose centenary we will soon be celebrating.  The cover employs suffragette colors and emphasizes the conflicting views of Paul, who was arrested several times and went on a hunger strike in support of votes for women, and of Wilson, born in the South and who once wrote, “universal suffrage is at the foundation of every evil in this country.” MR. PRESIDENT, HOW LONG MUST WE WAIT? chronicles a struggle that, according to author Cassidy, “served as a model for how to create a movement through protests and grassroots activism for the rest of the century and into the next.” Cassidy was recorded at the US National Archives speaking about her book and its relevance today with themes of “patriotism, racism, the right way to protest, the slow pace of change, a divided women’s movement, and righting the wrongs of inequality.”  This is a fascinating text (for example, how many know that Alice Paul also worked on drafting the Equal Rights Amendment?) and readers can sample an excerpt here. Our American Studies teachers are considering MR. PRESIDENT, HOW LONG MUST WE WAIT? as a required summer read. It is definitely a well-researched and accessible text with footnotes, an extensive bibliography and helpful index.

The timeliness of works like this correspond to other events and exhibits like the one at The National Portrait Gallery, “Votes for Women,” which begins March 29.  Several videos, including Iron Jawed Angels, explore this fight and so, of course, do other books like The Woman’s Hour by Elaine Weiss.

THE WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT edited by Sally Roesch Wagner is another new work of non-fiction that has been recommended for teens and is now on our library shelves. Gloria Steinem provides the foreword and praises Wagner for beginning this book by noting that “suffrage leaders were inspired by the example of a free and equal Native American women.” The intertwining of racial and gender struggles for equality is reflected in the cover, as an eye peaks out. Wagner, a well-known authority on women's studies and currently serving as adjunct faculty at Syracuse University, does indeed begin by describing matrilineal cultures.  She includes a section titled “Women Voted Before the United States Was Formed” which contains the text of speeches and periodical articles from the late 1800s about the Iroquois Confederacy. The next portion looks mainly at documents crafted by organizers up to and including the Seneca Falls Convention. Then, Wagner includes roughly ten primary sources for each of the subsequent decades before 1920. There are private letters, letters to the editor, autobiography excerpts, a eulogy, and much more. This collection is filled with important historical documents and memorable quotes such as this one from Carrie Chapman Catt: “Women’s suffrage is inevitable.  Suffragists knew it before Nov. 4, 1917; opponents afterward.” THE WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT will provide more than ample material for assignments like asking students to describe the author and context of any artifact here, for, as Steinem quotes Paula Gunn Allen, “the root of oppression is the loss of memory." THE WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT received a starred review from Library Journal, which called it “an essential compilation.”

The Woman's Hour by Elaine Weiss

THE WOMAN'S HOUR by Elaine Weiss is an absolutely terrific non-fiction book which tells the story of the fight to ratify voting rights for women. As such, it makes me think of the quote attributed to Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Although author Weiss focuses mainly on the six weeks in 1920 during which the Tennessee legislature debated ratifying the Nineteenth Amendment, in THE WOMAN'S HOUR she notes that “winning the vote required seventy-two years of ceaseless agitation by three generations of dedicated, fearless suffragists … the women who launched the movement were dead by the time it was completed; the women who secured its final success weren’t born when it began.” 

This is, frankly, a dense and detailed read but it is surprisingly suspenseful and a fascinating look at American attitudes towards women, with elements of regionalism/states’ rights, class, and race included, too. I have already been talking about incorporating it in class discussions with our American Studies teachers. A reading guide link is here. THE WOMAN'S HOUR received starred reviews from Library Journal and Publishers Weekly.

For more ideas on truly inspirational women, see the display in the library; plus, check out more ideas online from Goodreads regarding how well-behaved women seldom make history (a list of recommended titles from Elaine Weiss) and see a new feature called  “Overlooked” which profiles women whose obituaries were not previously published by The New York Times.