A Century of Votes for Women: American Elections Since Suffrage

by Christina Wolbrecht, J. Kevin Corder

How have American women voted in the first 100 years since the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment? How have popular understandings of women as voters both persisted and changed over time? In A Century of Votes for Women, Christina Wolbrecht and J. Kevin Corder offer an unprecedented account of women voters in American politics over the last ten decades. Bringing together new and existing data, the book provides unique insight into women's (and men's) voting behavior, and traces how women's turnout and vote choice evolved across a century of enormous transformation overall and for women in particular. Wolbrecht and Corder show that there is no such thing as 'the woman voter'; instead they reveal considerable variation in how different groups of women voted in response to changing political, social, and economic realities. The book also demonstrates how assumptions about women as voters influenced politicians, the press, and scholars.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Gender

330 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2020

Reviews

[Ivy]

This book gives an overview/summary of women ever since they were given the right to vote by the 19th Amendment in 1920. It reads as a textbook and would be good for all people who are interested in history.

I enjoyed this book a lot. It was nice to see the history of women voters, from when the 19th Amendment was passed in 1920 to today in 2020. It reads more as a textbook and would be perfect for fans of history and political science.

I received an ARC copy of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Lauren D'Souza]

2020 marks a milestone in American political history: 100 years prior, the 19th Amendment was passed and women received the right to vote in the United States. Wolbrecht and Corder, professors of political science at Notre Dame and Western Michigan University respectively, recognize this landmark event and present a follow-up question: How have women voted in their century of suffrage?

The authors break up these 100 years into periods of roughly 16-20 years, recognizable to any student of U.S. history as major eras of social, political, military, and economic change in the country. They analyze the best-available data to comment on trends such as voter turnout, voting patterns as compared to men, party preference, and other demographic data such as education, births, marriage, and labor force participation. As the century progresses and more data becomes publicly available, the authors disaggregate the data further and analyze state/local elections, the influence of race and class, and other quasi-political trends.

The authors did a good job of not lumping all women into one homogenous bloc that votes in the same way. They realize that in the initial decades of women's suffrage, all women had the right to vote on paper, but in practice, only white women actually participated in elections, and women of color were systemically barred from voting. As more women of color voted in major elections, the authors begin to note trends that are more consistent across lines of race or socio-economic status than gender, especially notable in the 2016 election.

I found this book to be interesting, but fairly repetitive for my pre-existing knowledge. I studied history in college and have always been an ardent reader and student of U.S. history and women's history in the 20th century, taking classes on the subjects and reading other books on the topic. So, I felt that much of the historical and political analysis was already known to me, such as the history of how women received the vote, how the reversion to the domestic sphere in the 40s and 50s affected politics, the increasing openness in the 60s and 70s, etc. I found the data analysis to be the most compelling component of the book. Overall, this book is quite dry and academic - think of it as a book you would likely read in a college course on women's political history in the United States. Nonetheless, it presents a wealth of data, information, and analysis for students of this topic to use.

Thank you to Cambridge University Press for the ARC via NetGalley.

[In Kell]

I expected this book to be more for the broad audience, but in reality it's pretty much a textbook. However it is a textbook that I would eagerly recommend to people, interested in women's history, political history of USA or history in general. This book is absolutely packed with information, well-researched and takes a very neutral stance and doesn't make unsupported generalisations.

[Angie Boyter]

My rating reflects a balance. For me as a general reader this is probably a 2, because of the very academic writing style, but I suspect scholars will love all the data gathered in one place.
See my Amazon Vine review: https://smile.amazon.com/review/R2W5X...

[Sarah]

3.75 stars

"A Century of Votes for Women" gave an interesting overview of how the voting behaviour of women changed during the first century of suffrage.

Unfortunately, the chapters got rather repetitive and I think that the analysis could have been more condensed. Still, a very interesting subject matter.

[Kat M]

I throughly enjoyed this book, I found it well-written and well researched. Overall it was really interesting to read about the history of women voting, and you could tell the author cared about the topic.

[Sharon]

This seems to be a fairly well-researched book although it does seem the authors are left leaning and I would have preferred a non-biased book. It’s nicely laid out and very easy to follow.

[Melissa]

This book is very informative, although I would say it reads more like a research report. Lots of data with diagrams.

[grace copps]

read for my us political systems class

[Kelsey Elaine]

Read for a graduate level seminar

[Heather Bennett]

A Century of Votes for Women should be read by all students in college. This book is dense in facts and dry, but the authors have clearly done their research.

[Pam Devine]

An interesting look at the different ways in which women have voted in America since 1920. I found a lot of the book terms confusing as I am not American however it was interesting to see how voter demographics change over the years. I found it rather dry and it would probably work better as a book to be dipped in and out of rather than read in a linear fashion as I did. Recommended for those interested in American social history.

[Jocelyn]

Unlike other books, A Century of Votes for Women looks beyond the final vote for the 19th Amendment and explores from the struggle for the vote up to and including today. There are a lot of stats and information...sometimes a little too much at times, but it is obviously well researched and backed up.

I received a copy of this book for a fair review, all opinions are my own.

[Anaïs]

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