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Born Criminal: Matilda Joslyn Gage, Radical Suffragist
American Library Association Amelia Bloomer List Finalist; Midwest Book Awards Winner; Foreword INDIE Awards Finalist; Benjamin Franklin Awards Silver Winner Radical, feminist, writer, suffragist Matilda Joslyn Gage changed the course of United States history. She fought for equal rights for women not dependent on race, class, or religion. Yet her name has faded into obscurity. She is overlooked when her comrades, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, are celebrated. In the first biography on this important woman, Angelica Shirley Carpenter explores Gage s life, including her rise and fall within the movement she helped build. Carpenter s next book, The Voice of Liberty, features the woman suffrage movement s rousing protest of the Statue of Liberty. In 1886, Gage and other suffrage supporters sailed a cattle barge into the center of the dedication. Find out why they opposed this national icon by visiting sdhspress.com.
284 pages, Paperback
First published September 20, 2018
7 people are currently reading
301 people want to read
About the author
Angelica Shirley Carpenter
14 books12 followersAngelica Shirley Carpenter writes biographies for young people and older readers, too. Her subjects are authors— Frances Hodgson Burnett, L. Frank Baum, Robert Louis Stevenson, Lewis Carroll, and Matilda Joslyn Gage.
Angelica speaks for teachers, librarians, writers, book clubs, students, bookstore groups, and other audiences. Her photographs appear in her books and in her illustrated talks.
Angelica lives with her husband in Fresno, California. A self-proclaimed Oz nut, she is a past president of the International Wizard of Oz Club. In her former life she was a librarian, the founding curator of the Arne Nixon Center for the Study of Children's Literature at California State University, Fresno. She likes to read, travel, shop, cook, watch movies, and listen to rock and roll (not all at the same time).
Angelica speaks for teachers, librarians, writers, book clubs, students, bookstore groups, and other audiences. Her photographs appear in her books and in her illustrated talks.
Angelica lives with her husband in Fresno, California. A self-proclaimed Oz nut, she is a past president of the International Wizard of Oz Club. In her former life she was a librarian, the founding curator of the Arne Nixon Center for the Study of Children's Literature at California State University, Fresno. She likes to read, travel, shop, cook, watch movies, and listen to rock and roll (not all at the same time).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
June 23, 2018
An excellent book about a woman who was an abolitionist, suffragist, freethinker and radical. No wonder she was written out of women's history. I wish I had known about this remarkable woman years ago. I highly recommend this very readable book.
May 15, 2018
great read about an intersectional activist before the word was invented. Honestly, I wish we had learned more about Matilda Joslyn Gage -- one of the few women's right's activists in the 1800s (suffragettes and the like) who actually wasn't racist. [screw you Susan B. Anthony!!] The book was very interesting, though it itself could use more of an intersectional lens at points (statements like "women gained the right to vote in the 1920s" are just false, unless you're only talking about white women).
but altogether, I definitely recommend. Restore honor to Gage's name!
but altogether, I definitely recommend. Restore honor to Gage's name!
September 11, 2021
In choosing to rate Born Criminal: Matilda Joslyn Gage, Radical Suffragist by Angelica Shirley Carpenter at three stars I wish to be taken literally: This is not a bad book. I am not the target audience and it is reasonable to say that it does a fair job for a younger reader. If assigned as a class read for middle schools it will succeed in informing the reader about a possibly deliberately forgotten early leader in movement for Women’s Rights. Overall I found it raised many questions, made a point of never pursuing them and in failing to be deep, revealed other problems.
The first thing to bother me was the emphasis on clothes and appearance. This is more subtle than it seems. Some clothing choices tended to emphasize the religion of the woman, others had direct political implications. Exceptions allowed, there was too much about who was wearing what, in what color, how well it fit and if the result was attractive. A telling point was that rarely was there comparable comment on the clothing choices of the men.
Mrs. Gage, was born to a house that was part of the Underground Railroad, and later, so were some of her homes. She was also raised to be an academic researcher. For most girls, scholaship was actively discouraged, where not actively suppressed. The result is that she became something of the resident intellectual among the earliest leaders of the Women’s Movement.
Beyond this it gets to be very hard to make many specific statements. She attended and spoke to much acclaim, at many national meetings. Why the meetings were held and what they achieved is never documented. Certainly, officers were elected (Mrs. Gage was frequently one of the elected officers) committees were formed, pamphlets and later books written, but all we can say for sure is that the national press tended to cover these events. Often surly in their coverage, but not always.
Mrs. Gage developed some severely critical attitudes about how religion had been bent to favor monogynist attitudes and practices. It is implied but not made clear that these opinions may have been at the heart of the possibly conscious choice to push her into the Movement’s background. That is too many “possibly” and “implied”. A better biography would have yielded some answers.
Mrs. Gage had very close contact with all of the better-known period Women’s Rights Leaders, Elizabethan Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony among others. She would alternately host them in her home and be so hosted. Long periods of contact were part of cooperating on several books. Time and time again the final products of this cooperation had her name removed or forgotten in the copyright, or list of authors. She came to feel that she had been cheated of payments as had been agreed was to be hers. Yet she never failed to resume her public and profession relationships with people she called cheats and thieves.
Never do we get any but Mrs. Gage’s point of view on these cheats. They are passed over and made light. There is a vague effort conjure motives, but they are never properly or even fairly explored.
As might be expected in a book intended for use in a middle school class there are lots of pictures, a section of questions and actives and an interesting, if friendly interview with the author.
The first thing to bother me was the emphasis on clothes and appearance. This is more subtle than it seems. Some clothing choices tended to emphasize the religion of the woman, others had direct political implications. Exceptions allowed, there was too much about who was wearing what, in what color, how well it fit and if the result was attractive. A telling point was that rarely was there comparable comment on the clothing choices of the men.
Mrs. Gage, was born to a house that was part of the Underground Railroad, and later, so were some of her homes. She was also raised to be an academic researcher. For most girls, scholaship was actively discouraged, where not actively suppressed. The result is that she became something of the resident intellectual among the earliest leaders of the Women’s Movement.
Beyond this it gets to be very hard to make many specific statements. She attended and spoke to much acclaim, at many national meetings. Why the meetings were held and what they achieved is never documented. Certainly, officers were elected (Mrs. Gage was frequently one of the elected officers) committees were formed, pamphlets and later books written, but all we can say for sure is that the national press tended to cover these events. Often surly in their coverage, but not always.
Mrs. Gage developed some severely critical attitudes about how religion had been bent to favor monogynist attitudes and practices. It is implied but not made clear that these opinions may have been at the heart of the possibly conscious choice to push her into the Movement’s background. That is too many “possibly” and “implied”. A better biography would have yielded some answers.
Mrs. Gage had very close contact with all of the better-known period Women’s Rights Leaders, Elizabethan Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony among others. She would alternately host them in her home and be so hosted. Long periods of contact were part of cooperating on several books. Time and time again the final products of this cooperation had her name removed or forgotten in the copyright, or list of authors. She came to feel that she had been cheated of payments as had been agreed was to be hers. Yet she never failed to resume her public and profession relationships with people she called cheats and thieves.
Never do we get any but Mrs. Gage’s point of view on these cheats. They are passed over and made light. There is a vague effort conjure motives, but they are never properly or even fairly explored.
As might be expected in a book intended for use in a middle school class there are lots of pictures, a section of questions and actives and an interesting, if friendly interview with the author.
November 5, 2018
Earnestly written book about an unsung figure in the 19th century women’s suffrage movement. The “why” is not too difficult to determine: she was far more radical in her thinking than leaders like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. The latter, in particular, seems to have done all she could to marginalize Gage when she was alive and erase her from women’s history after her death.
Gage was held at arms-length by many because she courageously criticized a truly sacred entity: the Christian religion, for denigrating women in its history and rituals. She also supported some concepts which are now scientifically discredited, such as astrology and spiritualism. But the latter is forgivable, when you consider that the movement’s leading lights were so dedicated to ideas that were truly damaging, such as Prohibition.
It would be churlish to say the book is not written in a scholarly fashion. But it is written at a level that is lower than you would find in a typical book of history. For this reason I’m not exactly sure who the audience was expected to me. It is too lengthy to be written for YA readers, but do adult history buffs really need to be told that abolitionists were people who opposed slavery? I had to get through at least a third of the book before I came to accept the author’s style.
A good and easy read for anyone who would like to learn about suffragists beyond Anthony and Stanton, and anyone who, like Gage, is steadfast in beliefs that require courage in the face of opposition.
Gage was held at arms-length by many because she courageously criticized a truly sacred entity: the Christian religion, for denigrating women in its history and rituals. She also supported some concepts which are now scientifically discredited, such as astrology and spiritualism. But the latter is forgivable, when you consider that the movement’s leading lights were so dedicated to ideas that were truly damaging, such as Prohibition.
It would be churlish to say the book is not written in a scholarly fashion. But it is written at a level that is lower than you would find in a typical book of history. For this reason I’m not exactly sure who the audience was expected to me. It is too lengthy to be written for YA readers, but do adult history buffs really need to be told that abolitionists were people who opposed slavery? I had to get through at least a third of the book before I came to accept the author’s style.
A good and easy read for anyone who would like to learn about suffragists beyond Anthony and Stanton, and anyone who, like Gage, is steadfast in beliefs that require courage in the face of opposition.
September 15, 2020
Gage was a major figure in the early women's suffrage movement alongside Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, yet has been mostly forgotten. Even Anthony and Stanton downplayed her contribution, failing to give her the credit she richly deserved.
As a girl Matilda had hoped to become a doctor like her father, who tutored and encouraged her, expecting that by the time she grew up, women would be allowed to become doctors. But it was not to be. She turned her talents to organizing, speaking, researching and writing.
Gage was tireless in her activism, continuing with considerable energy even in the face of political opposition, money troubles, ill health and later, the death of her husband. She organized a daring protest of the 1886 dedication of the Statue of Liberty, saying "It is the greatest sarcasm of the nineteenth century" to represent liberty as a woman, "while not one single woman throughout the length and breadth of the land is as yet in possession of political liberty." One of the many fascinating facts we learn is that her youngest daughter Maud married L. Frank Baum, author of The Wizard of Oz.
This inspiring piece of women's history was made more enjoyable by its many photographs.
As a girl Matilda had hoped to become a doctor like her father, who tutored and encouraged her, expecting that by the time she grew up, women would be allowed to become doctors. But it was not to be. She turned her talents to organizing, speaking, researching and writing.
Gage was tireless in her activism, continuing with considerable energy even in the face of political opposition, money troubles, ill health and later, the death of her husband. She organized a daring protest of the 1886 dedication of the Statue of Liberty, saying "It is the greatest sarcasm of the nineteenth century" to represent liberty as a woman, "while not one single woman throughout the length and breadth of the land is as yet in possession of political liberty." One of the many fascinating facts we learn is that her youngest daughter Maud married L. Frank Baum, author of The Wizard of Oz.
This inspiring piece of women's history was made more enjoyable by its many photographs.
February 15, 2019
Matilda Joslyn Gage. Likely not a name you've heard before, which seems to be just what some important fellow suffragists intended. Angelica Shirley Carpenter, the author of this well-researched biography, reveals the strains in that movement to gain women the right to vote. And she brings to light a woman of passionate commitment, responsible to family but also to something larger, who endured arrest and abuse and wore herself out for women's rights.
Matilda Electa Joslyn was born in 1826 to a prosperous family. Her father was a doctor, and rare for the time, he sometimes took his young daughter with him to make calls. Occasionally she even helped with patients. The work, and her father, inspired her and she decided to become a doctor.
Dr. Joslyn had the courage of his convictions. His home was a stop on the Underground Railroad. He edited a temperance newspaper. And he championed the rights of women and children. Like Matilda's mother, he believed in freedom for all. The two sometimes took Matilda to political meetings, educated her well, and she became a woman of strong opinions. Carpenter writes:
Matilda saw the limitations for women of her time, and she herself came up hard against the patriarchy when she was refused entrance to medical school, despite a fine education, means, and a passion for the field. Her crime was being female.
At age eleven, Matilda joined a Christian church, but as time went on, she rejected many of the ideas she heard there, especially the story of Adam and Eve. "The Christian Church...is based upon the fact of woman servitude; upon the theory that woman brought sin and death into the world, and that therefore she was punished by being placed in a condition of inferiority to man."
Eventually, her scholarship and vocal opinions on this topic may have been a factor in the turning away from her that occurred in the 1870s, by which time she had long been a public figure for women's suffrage. And there may have been a clash of personalities and ambitions, too.
She had been, quite literally, one of the three main founders of the movement, along with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. They worked together to organize and publicize national meetings, wrote policy papers and met with officials and made public appearances together. Matilda's near-invisibility in the histories of that movement is a surprising fall, when the other two women are yet revered. Carpenter here goes some distance in righting that wrong. And her book convincingly argues that it is those same two women, Anthony and Stanton, who are most responsible for banishing Gage.
Born Criminal: Matilda Joslyn Gage, Radical Suffragist is a fascinating look at the nascent women's movement of the 19th century, and at a powerful figure in that movement, who was in danger of being forgotten. It also resonates in the twenty-first century, as resistance to women's equality continues, and differences of religion, lifestyle, and class, and competition, still muddy the water for activist women. The author has given us some insights that could be put to use today.
Further, Carpenter restates with fresh vigor the significance of the early feminists, the challenges they faced, and their continuing impact. We need the reminder. She allows Matilda's powerful words to reach us again: "The longer I work, the more I see that woman's cause is the world's cause."
by Susan Schoch
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women
Matilda Electa Joslyn was born in 1826 to a prosperous family. Her father was a doctor, and rare for the time, he sometimes took his young daughter with him to make calls. Occasionally she even helped with patients. The work, and her father, inspired her and she decided to become a doctor.
Dr. Joslyn had the courage of his convictions. His home was a stop on the Underground Railroad. He edited a temperance newspaper. And he championed the rights of women and children. Like Matilda's mother, he believed in freedom for all. The two sometimes took Matilda to political meetings, educated her well, and she became a woman of strong opinions. Carpenter writes:
"I have frequently been asked what first turned my thoughts towards woman's rights," Matilda wrote later. "I think I was born with a hatred of oppression, and, too, in my father's house, I was trained in the anti-slavery ranks." In Matilda's youth, no organization existed to fight for the rights of women, but she came to realize that the reform strategies that worked for one group could work for others, too.
Matilda saw the limitations for women of her time, and she herself came up hard against the patriarchy when she was refused entrance to medical school, despite a fine education, means, and a passion for the field. Her crime was being female.
At age eleven, Matilda joined a Christian church, but as time went on, she rejected many of the ideas she heard there, especially the story of Adam and Eve. "The Christian Church...is based upon the fact of woman servitude; upon the theory that woman brought sin and death into the world, and that therefore she was punished by being placed in a condition of inferiority to man."
Eventually, her scholarship and vocal opinions on this topic may have been a factor in the turning away from her that occurred in the 1870s, by which time she had long been a public figure for women's suffrage. And there may have been a clash of personalities and ambitions, too.
She had been, quite literally, one of the three main founders of the movement, along with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. They worked together to organize and publicize national meetings, wrote policy papers and met with officials and made public appearances together. Matilda's near-invisibility in the histories of that movement is a surprising fall, when the other two women are yet revered. Carpenter here goes some distance in righting that wrong. And her book convincingly argues that it is those same two women, Anthony and Stanton, who are most responsible for banishing Gage.
Born Criminal: Matilda Joslyn Gage, Radical Suffragist is a fascinating look at the nascent women's movement of the 19th century, and at a powerful figure in that movement, who was in danger of being forgotten. It also resonates in the twenty-first century, as resistance to women's equality continues, and differences of religion, lifestyle, and class, and competition, still muddy the water for activist women. The author has given us some insights that could be put to use today.
Further, Carpenter restates with fresh vigor the significance of the early feminists, the challenges they faced, and their continuing impact. We need the reminder. She allows Matilda's powerful words to reach us again: "The longer I work, the more I see that woman's cause is the world's cause."
by Susan Schoch
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women
January 16, 2020
I first learned about Matilda Joslyn Gage (1826–1898) from Mary Daly's Gyn/Ecology: The Meta-ethics of Radical Feminism, which I read soon after it was published in 1978. A year or so later, Gage's Woman, Church & State was reprinted by Persephone Press, edited and with an introduction by Sally Roesch Wagner, then as now the #1 scholar of and advocate for Gage's work. I was both blown away and angry: blown away by Gage's perceptiveness and powerful writing; angry that neither I nor my feminist friends had heard of her. She had been erased from history, in spite of her determined efforts to prevent it.
I discovered this 2018 biography while compiling a reading list about the U.S. women's suffrage movement. Why, I wondered, was the first non-academic biography of Gage published by the South Dakota Historical Society? I didn't realize that several of Gage's children had lived and raised families in South Dakota, that Gage had spent a fair amount of time there, and that it was Sally Roesch Wagner's home state. In fact, it was partly through one-on-one contact with one of Gage's granddaughters that Wagner learned about Gage.
Born Criminal seems to have been published as a YA (young adult) title: there's a section in the back suggesting projects and discussion questions for high school use. But it's solidly researched and well documented, and it doesn't assume extensive prior knowledge of either the suffrage movement or 19th-century U.S. history. I heartily recommend it to everyone interested in the movement and the period, and especially to those who want to know more about feminism's more radical, intersectional roots.
Matilda Joslyn Gage really was, as Gloria Steinem has said, "ahead of the women who were ahead of their time." Unfortunately this helps explain her erasure not only from U.S. history but specifically the history of the suffrage movement. Susan B. Anthony and her authorized biographer, Ida Husted Harper, deserve a large share of the blame for this. Why?
As the 19th century turned into the 20th, the suffrage movement became more and more laser-focused on the vote, more "conservative," if you will. Women's rights in general, and especially the rights of women of color, became not just peripheral but seen as liabilities. Gage's detailed and unsparing critique of religion's role in the oppression of women was especially dangerous. (Elizabeth Cady Stanton's Woman's Bible was used by anti-suffragists in their campaign to prevent ratification of the 19th Amendment, leading suffragists to distance themselves from it, even though Stanton had been dead for almost two decades.)
Angelica Shirley Carpenter has done us a huge service by documenting Gage's life and political activism so thoroughly. I hope that other biographers and writers will build on her work, perhaps by exploring her historical context and her legacy. Part of that legacy is what caught Carpenter's attention. She was an avid -- more than avid! -- fan of L. Frank Baum, a household name for generations, and this led her to Baum's remarkable mother-in-law: none other than Matilda Joslyn Gage. She speculates that this might have had something to do with the feminism and remarkable female characters of the later Oz books.
For more about Gage, check out the Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation, established in 2000 by Sally Roesch Wagner and "dedicated to educating current and future generations about Gage’s work and its power to drive contemporary social change."
I discovered this 2018 biography while compiling a reading list about the U.S. women's suffrage movement. Why, I wondered, was the first non-academic biography of Gage published by the South Dakota Historical Society? I didn't realize that several of Gage's children had lived and raised families in South Dakota, that Gage had spent a fair amount of time there, and that it was Sally Roesch Wagner's home state. In fact, it was partly through one-on-one contact with one of Gage's granddaughters that Wagner learned about Gage.
Born Criminal seems to have been published as a YA (young adult) title: there's a section in the back suggesting projects and discussion questions for high school use. But it's solidly researched and well documented, and it doesn't assume extensive prior knowledge of either the suffrage movement or 19th-century U.S. history. I heartily recommend it to everyone interested in the movement and the period, and especially to those who want to know more about feminism's more radical, intersectional roots.
Matilda Joslyn Gage really was, as Gloria Steinem has said, "ahead of the women who were ahead of their time." Unfortunately this helps explain her erasure not only from U.S. history but specifically the history of the suffrage movement. Susan B. Anthony and her authorized biographer, Ida Husted Harper, deserve a large share of the blame for this. Why?
As the 19th century turned into the 20th, the suffrage movement became more and more laser-focused on the vote, more "conservative," if you will. Women's rights in general, and especially the rights of women of color, became not just peripheral but seen as liabilities. Gage's detailed and unsparing critique of religion's role in the oppression of women was especially dangerous. (Elizabeth Cady Stanton's Woman's Bible was used by anti-suffragists in their campaign to prevent ratification of the 19th Amendment, leading suffragists to distance themselves from it, even though Stanton had been dead for almost two decades.)
Angelica Shirley Carpenter has done us a huge service by documenting Gage's life and political activism so thoroughly. I hope that other biographers and writers will build on her work, perhaps by exploring her historical context and her legacy. Part of that legacy is what caught Carpenter's attention. She was an avid -- more than avid! -- fan of L. Frank Baum, a household name for generations, and this led her to Baum's remarkable mother-in-law: none other than Matilda Joslyn Gage. She speculates that this might have had something to do with the feminism and remarkable female characters of the later Oz books.
For more about Gage, check out the Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation, established in 2000 by Sally Roesch Wagner and "dedicated to educating current and future generations about Gage’s work and its power to drive contemporary social change."
April 2, 2019
This is SUCH an important book about a key figure who was written out of women's history. Gage was born in 1826 to parents who were active abolitionists, their home an underground railroad stop when she was growing up, as was her home after she married. She became involved in the women's suffrage movement in 1852.
Gage was considered more radical than Susan B. Anthony or Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who she knew extremely through their joint work for the National Woman Suffrage Association. Gage was very well educated, and particularly interested in shining a light on forgotten women in history and women's inventions. Anthony and Stanton, who out-lived Gage, are the key people responsible for writing her out of history. Both took credit for Gage's writings and research at various times before and after her death, Anthony most egregiously. Gage's writing was often praised, and her book Woman, Church, and State garnered a personal letter from Tolstoy with the back handed compliment "It proved a woman could think logically."
Gage was also L. Frank Baum's mother-in-law, and it's thought that she greatly inspired how he wrote women and girls, particularly in the Oz books and the books written under his Edith van Dyne pseudonym. Given that Baum had only sons, I think this is probably quite true.
Highly recommend this book, or at least doing a good Wikipedia dive.
Gage was considered more radical than Susan B. Anthony or Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who she knew extremely through their joint work for the National Woman Suffrage Association. Gage was very well educated, and particularly interested in shining a light on forgotten women in history and women's inventions. Anthony and Stanton, who out-lived Gage, are the key people responsible for writing her out of history. Both took credit for Gage's writings and research at various times before and after her death, Anthony most egregiously. Gage's writing was often praised, and her book Woman, Church, and State garnered a personal letter from Tolstoy with the back handed compliment "It proved a woman could think logically."
Gage was also L. Frank Baum's mother-in-law, and it's thought that she greatly inspired how he wrote women and girls, particularly in the Oz books and the books written under his Edith van Dyne pseudonym. Given that Baum had only sons, I think this is probably quite true.
Highly recommend this book, or at least doing a good Wikipedia dive.
September 4, 2021
This is a wonderful biography!
I hope I can get a copy of Sally Roesch Wagner's 1978 biography of MJG-- and I hope she has a new one (or updated edition of the old one) in the works.
I considered Matilda Joslyn Gage one of my favorite suffragists even before reading this book--and this biography confirms it. She was anti-racist (unlike many white suffragists) and recognized certain Native tribes as non-patriarchal--and a tribe adopted her. She was rad--perhaps the first to acknowledge and analyze the misogyny and patriarchy of Xianity--and wrote the book _Woman, Church and State_. She was L. Frank Baum's mother-in-law and inspired his Oz series.
Unfortunately, though she was a major suffragist, MJG has been largely ignored. Even during her lifetime, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony stole her thunder and succeeded in coming across as the most important suffragists. As Ani Difranco would say, Susan B. Anthony was "a fucking Napoleon." I try to give Anthony slack because she was a lesbian, but she's disappointing--between the overtly racist things she said in response to the movement to give black men the vote before women, plus how she treated, and the way she underplayed Gage's part in the movement and stole from her.
(Admittedly, women's history is largely ignored in general, and the average American knows nothing of suffrage history except maybe Susan B. Anthony.)
"One author did not forget Matilda: her son-in-law, L. Frank Baum. After Matilda died, he kept _Woman, Church and State_ in print while he continued to write children's stories. His 1900 book _The Wonderful Wizard of Oz_ featured a self-confident American heroine named Dorothy. Baum went on to write thirteen more Oz books; Matilda's influence can be seen throughout. In the second volume, the rightful ruler of Oz, a fairy princess named Ozma, comes to power. For the rest of the series, Oz is a feminist utopia, ruled by women (p. 212)."
I hope I can get a copy of Sally Roesch Wagner's 1978 biography of MJG-- and I hope she has a new one (or updated edition of the old one) in the works.
I considered Matilda Joslyn Gage one of my favorite suffragists even before reading this book--and this biography confirms it. She was anti-racist (unlike many white suffragists) and recognized certain Native tribes as non-patriarchal--and a tribe adopted her. She was rad--perhaps the first to acknowledge and analyze the misogyny and patriarchy of Xianity--and wrote the book _Woman, Church and State_. She was L. Frank Baum's mother-in-law and inspired his Oz series.
Unfortunately, though she was a major suffragist, MJG has been largely ignored. Even during her lifetime, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony stole her thunder and succeeded in coming across as the most important suffragists. As Ani Difranco would say, Susan B. Anthony was "a fucking Napoleon." I try to give Anthony slack because she was a lesbian, but she's disappointing--between the overtly racist things she said in response to the movement to give black men the vote before women, plus how she treated, and the way she underplayed Gage's part in the movement and stole from her.
(Admittedly, women's history is largely ignored in general, and the average American knows nothing of suffrage history except maybe Susan B. Anthony.)
"One author did not forget Matilda: her son-in-law, L. Frank Baum. After Matilda died, he kept _Woman, Church and State_ in print while he continued to write children's stories. His 1900 book _The Wonderful Wizard of Oz_ featured a self-confident American heroine named Dorothy. Baum went on to write thirteen more Oz books; Matilda's influence can be seen throughout. In the second volume, the rightful ruler of Oz, a fairy princess named Ozma, comes to power. For the rest of the series, Oz is a feminist utopia, ruled by women (p. 212)."
September 14, 2021
The young adult biography gives an overview of Gage's life and her contributions to the cause of women's suffrage. She was friends with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, but they eventually fell out because of her unwillingness to compromise with those who supported her main cause but were otherwise prejudiced. Gage was particularly critical of the church's role in putting down women. At the same time, she was a member of a church, and was interested in astrology and fortune telling, and a member of the Theosophical Society. I guess to me, supernatural is supernatural, but there was less misogyny associated with these New Age beliefs. Matilda's family was against slavery and active with the Underground Railroad, part of how she came to support equality for all, while other suffragists supported women being allowed to vote at the expense of others' rights. How much we should be willing to compromise with those who promote some of the same causes but have other abhorrent beliefs is still a tricky issue. I heard something recently about how the legalization of same-sex marriage went along with a certain amount of transphobia, and that's much along the same lines. I have to say I was shocked by some of the comments the media made about the woman's suffrage movement and its adherents, but I really shouldn't have been, as people still say some of the same sorts of things now. Matilda was also adopted into the Mohawk nation, which makes me wonder about her opinion on her son-in-law's racist editorial against Native Americans, but as far as I know there's no surviving correspondence on that. The book also addresses how Gage was largely written out of the movement she helped to establish, perhaps not intentionally, but with that being the ultimate effect. The volume includes a good number of photographs and some reproductions of relevant documents.
March 20, 2020
How many of you ever heard of Matilda Joslyn Gage? I think almost all Americans have heard of Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. But until reading this book, I was not familiar with Gage’s contributions to the women's movement. In this way, Angelica Carpenter has made a good contribution.
She has written an easy to read book, but not a children's book. The author has visited the important places in Gage’s life to get a first hand idea of Gage’s life. Carpenter brings the relations Gage had with other important leaders of the movement, as well as members of her family. This includes her son-in-law, L. Frank Baum-you know, The Wizard of Oz author.
While this is a book about Gage, I would have also liked to have a bit more information about why Anthony and Stanton at the end of Gage’s life were ignoring Gage’s contributions. We are given Gage’s side of the story, but not theirs.
Born Criminal gives a good walking-through of Matilda Joslyn Gage’s life. If one wanted a starting pace, it is well worth the read. Note: My book group had the author talk with us for one of our meetings. She was engaging and knowledgeable. This also helped to bring understanding to the book and Gage’s life.
My notes and thoughts can be found on my link text">my book blog.
She has written an easy to read book, but not a children's book. The author has visited the important places in Gage’s life to get a first hand idea of Gage’s life. Carpenter brings the relations Gage had with other important leaders of the movement, as well as members of her family. This includes her son-in-law, L. Frank Baum-you know, The Wizard of Oz author.
While this is a book about Gage, I would have also liked to have a bit more information about why Anthony and Stanton at the end of Gage’s life were ignoring Gage’s contributions. We are given Gage’s side of the story, but not theirs.
Born Criminal gives a good walking-through of Matilda Joslyn Gage’s life. If one wanted a starting pace, it is well worth the read. Note: My book group had the author talk with us for one of our meetings. She was engaging and knowledgeable. This also helped to bring understanding to the book and Gage’s life.
My notes and thoughts can be found on my link text">my book blog.
May 30, 2023
Matilda Joslyn Gage was one of the three most prominent suffragists of the 19th Century, along with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Early leaders of the movement to get equal rights for women, these three started the seminal work on the movement History of Woman Suffrage. Too Radical for her time, her research on the history of female oppression fueled the Second Wave Feminist Movement. Yet today Matilda Joslyn Gage is the least known of the three. Angelica Shirley Carpenter's biography does a lot to bring Gage's accomplishments to a modern audience. Of the three, Gage was the most radical, tracing women's oppresion to a coordinated effort of organized religion and civil governments. She was also the most scholarly, looking into the hostory of women's oppression. Her writings on this appeared in the first volume of History of Woman Suffrage, and in much greater detail in her later work Woman, Church and State.
This book relies a lot on papers preserved by Gage's children who settled in the Dakota Territory in the 1880s. This may explain why the book was published by the South Dakota Historical Society. The title is based on Gage's assertion that, lacking the basic right to vote, women were treated similar to criminals by society.
This book relies a lot on papers preserved by Gage's children who settled in the Dakota Territory in the 1880s. This may explain why the book was published by the South Dakota Historical Society. The title is based on Gage's assertion that, lacking the basic right to vote, women were treated similar to criminals by society.
November 20, 2019
A well-written biography of a suffragist and contemporary of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony who nobody has heard of, this book is written for a young adult audience. The author tells about why Matilda Gage is not as well-known, even thought she was quite active in the women's suffrage movement in the same time period. Matilda Gage was a feminist way ahead of her time, and although she was forgotten for many years after she died, she left her writing behind to be rediscovered in the 1960s and 1970s. In some ways she was also radical in her thinking, attacking religion, especially Christianity, for repressing women throughout history. In her day, she was criticized for her beliefs, but this did not bother her in the least. This is an important book about an important suffragist that is also very readable.
July 22, 2021
Really excellent book that is a great example of history correcting itself. Gage was excluded from much of early American feminism, but this book describes how Gage was a heavily influential advocate for universal equality. Today, based on her work with sexism, racism, and classism, she would be a proponent of intersectional feminism. She would be proud to see where we are today and have some opinion on how to move forward.
A clearly written book, that narrates her life, as well as her politics and beliefs, this book puts her work, and even the Wizard of Oz, into a greater context. It will influence my future readings of other feminist writings. There is an understanding now that if you live longest, you get to write the history. Spoiler, Susan B Anthony is the "villain" in this story.
A clearly written book, that narrates her life, as well as her politics and beliefs, this book puts her work, and even the Wizard of Oz, into a greater context. It will influence my future readings of other feminist writings. There is an understanding now that if you live longest, you get to write the history. Spoiler, Susan B Anthony is the "villain" in this story.
June 13, 2024
Transformational! Our Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes Book Club is reading this book and I can't wait for discussion! I knew nothing about this woman until I read "Finding Dorothy" and there she was! What a fascinating woman and a bright star role model for young and old women! The sad part about this book is all of the things Matilda was fighting for are things that it seems once again we are fighting for and it's 2024 for Heaven's sake! She would flip if she knew what was happening in America! She also understood that women are sometimes our own worst enemy and that's happening in our country too!
January 5, 2019
This is a biography of a suffragist who worked directly with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony - but has been largely lost to history (sometimes due directly to things that Susan B. Anthony did, such as taking credit for Gage's work). Her crime was being born a woman. Seriously, I fell asleep multiple times while trying to read this book. I appreciate the high level of scholarly research and that the author admits when there is a gap in the material. However, I feel like this is not as engaging as it could be.
June 13, 2024
First thesis book in the books! Read this to get a better grasp of Matilda’s life as a whole and maybe pirate some of the secondary source material/see which other primary sources are out there to consult besides Matilda’s own collection. Feeling SOOOOOO radicalized and excited to dive deeper into this project :)))
Technically book 5 of the summer but I don’t think thesis books count toward this count so nvm
Technically book 5 of the summer but I don’t think thesis books count toward this count so nvm
December 10, 2018
I received this book through Librarything.com Early Member Giveaway for an honest review of the book. This is my own opinion and thoughts of the book. I never have heard of Matilda Joslyn Gage until I read this book. She was apart of the Women Suffragist along with Susan B. Anthony and others. She was the forgotten one in history.
June 5, 2020
This was an accessible and concise read about the extraordinary life of Matilda Joslyn Gage. I do wish it had been more comprehensive though and had more details about certain aspects of her life (specifically her writings- where they can be found- and her work with the Iroquois women). I appreciated how the chapters were broken up into specific/notable times in her life; it made it easier to conceptualize everything.
July 16, 2020
Excellent piece of forgotten USA history. Matilda Gage is arguably more important than Susan B Anthony. An activist and suffragette fighting for women’s rights (more than just the right to vote), and Native American rights. She was friends with Frederick Douglass and the mother-in-law to Frank Baum (Wizard of Oz author). You can also visit her home, now a museum in Fayetteville, NY.
June 9, 2019
This is at the credibly research book about a fascinating woman. I sincerely appreciated the photos and the historical context when discussing her life. My only disappointment is that the 'why' isn't fully known which leaves a lot of questions about what really happened between these three women.
May 22, 2020
Well researched and well written book about the early days of the women's suffrage movement. Read about the good, the bad, and the ugly - even when fighting for something so important, egos play into rewriting history.
February 2, 2019
This was a very interesting read. The author did a wonderful job presenting the facts and information on the era in which the subject lived, as well as bringing her to life on the page.
May 16, 2019
This book is a must-read for every WOMAN on the planet! READ IT! If you've never heard of Matilda Joslyn Gage you need to know who she is and what she's done for you!
May 29, 2019
A forgotten suffragist who worked closely with Susan B Anthony, wrote much of the early writings attributed to Anthony, but was was written out of history after their falling out.
August 13, 2019
It was a readable and interesting book. I was surprised at the number of typos - it definitely needed a better editor. A good introduction to a lesser-known 19th-century women's rights activist.
March 3, 2020
This is a gem of women’s history. Matilda Gage was a suffragist and feminist eons before her time. Well worth the read.
May 30, 2022
Fascinating biography of an overlooked suffragist, scholar and humanist.
November 11, 2025
I really liked this book, but I had to DNF it with 70 pages left. Not because I wanted to, but because the library really wants it back. Guess they don’t like it when you keep a book for 7 months
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