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Elizabeth Cady Stanton: An American Life
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a brilliant activist-intellectual. That nearly all of her ideas—that women are entitled to seek an education, to own property, to get a divorce, and to vote—are now commonplace is in large part because she worked tirelessly to extend the nation’s promise of radical individualism to women. In this subtly crafted biography, the historian Lori D. Ginzberg narrates the life of a woman of great charm, enormous appetite, and extraordinary intellectual gifts who turned the limitations placed on women like herself into a universal philosophy of equal rights. Few could match Stanton’s self-confidence; loving an argument, she rarely wavered in her assumption that she had won. But she was no secular saint, and her positions were not always on the side of the broadest possible conception of justice and social change. Elitism runs through Stanton’s life and thought, defined most often by class, frequently by race, and always by intellect. Even her closest friends found her absolutism both thrilling and exasperating, for Stanton could be an excellent ally and a bothersome menace, sometimes simultaneously. At once critical and admiring, Ginzberg captures Stanton’s ambiguous place in the world of reformers and intellectuals, describes how she changed the world, and suggests that Stanton left a mixed legacy that continues to haunt American feminism.
252 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 29 reviews
June 19, 2024
Just finished:
New York: Hill and Wang, 2009.
Like the author of the book, who has wrestled with Stanton for decades, I had several thoughts while reading this book.
Stanton's push for women's rights, particularly women's suffrage was due to the fact that she couldn't participate in the Democratic process. However, her views were also shaped by her class. Her father was a lawyer and she didn't go without. She also liked spending time arguing with boys and playing with boys during her school years. She also went to an all girls school when her male peers went to college.
That said, she was a fervent crusader for women's rights. Although she married an abolitionist, she wasn't; she just circulated in abolitionist circles.
During the Civil War she hoped that the conflict would result in women's suffrage. When it didn't, she didn't have a problem lashing out about African Americans men who got the vote. She saw them as inferior to her both in education and status. The author doesn't mince words in her judgement on Stanton, arguing that while Stanton's position would have been normal for the time, she condemns Stanton because she didn't see herself as ordinary, she saw herself as a radical (Stanton advocated for divorce and "free love."). Ultimately Stanton's vitriol led to a split among the women's movement, making it in the minds of many, a movement for white women.
As I said, there are many thoughts I had reading this book. Although it's small, this biography is deep.
New York: Hill and Wang, 2009.
Like the author of the book, who has wrestled with Stanton for decades, I had several thoughts while reading this book.
Stanton's push for women's rights, particularly women's suffrage was due to the fact that she couldn't participate in the Democratic process. However, her views were also shaped by her class. Her father was a lawyer and she didn't go without. She also liked spending time arguing with boys and playing with boys during her school years. She also went to an all girls school when her male peers went to college.
That said, she was a fervent crusader for women's rights. Although she married an abolitionist, she wasn't; she just circulated in abolitionist circles.
During the Civil War she hoped that the conflict would result in women's suffrage. When it didn't, she didn't have a problem lashing out about African Americans men who got the vote. She saw them as inferior to her both in education and status. The author doesn't mince words in her judgement on Stanton, arguing that while Stanton's position would have been normal for the time, she condemns Stanton because she didn't see herself as ordinary, she saw herself as a radical (Stanton advocated for divorce and "free love."). Ultimately Stanton's vitriol led to a split among the women's movement, making it in the minds of many, a movement for white women.
As I said, there are many thoughts I had reading this book. Although it's small, this biography is deep.
November 23, 2017
An interesting biography of an interesting woman. Does not idealize her character and isn't afraid to show the unpleasant and problematic side of First Wave Feminism that is commonly associated with Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
January 16, 2021
Lori D. Ginzberg's thoroughly-researched and well-written biography about Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her powerful effect on the fight for suffrage and women's rights. I don't know if I would have liked Stanton very much but I certainly would have respected her dedication to the cause.
October 27, 2009
Stanton was the philosopher of the women's suffrage movement. Though the push for women's equality began before Stanton was introduced to it (beginning with Quaker abolitionists), she took up the cause whole-heartedly and became one of its chief spokespersons. Unfortunately she was so focused on women's rights that she discounted all of the other issues going on at the time. Most distressingly, she actively opposed the 15th Amendment (giving African-Americans the right to vote) because it empowered more men...and she thought well-educated, middle-class women were more deserving of the right to vote than former slaves. As much as I was impressed by Stanton's passionate convictions on women's suffrage, I was outraged by her very public racism and classism.
I learned a lot of things from this book, which should have meant more stars; but this book definitely would have been improved by a good editor. There is a good bit of jumping around in time and location. I guess I like my biographies more tied to strict chronology.
I learned a lot of things from this book, which should have meant more stars; but this book definitely would have been improved by a good editor. There is a good bit of jumping around in time and location. I guess I like my biographies more tied to strict chronology.
December 1, 2021
Elizabeth Cady Stanton: An American Life by Lori D Ginsberg- Children’s Illustrated Colour Picture Book- This book is biography of Elizabeth Candy Stanton (18015-1902) This book narrates the story of USA when women did not have (1) right to own property, (2) right to vote in election, (3) retain property of husband after husband’s death (4) participation of women in sports, (5) establish co-educational institutions, (6) equal wages for work as paid to men, (7) law to seek a divorce from husband, (8) abolition of slavery, (9) birth control. According to the book, Women could be educated up to the age of 16 years. They could not be admitted to college. Her father was a Judge and an affluent American. He and his wife supported his daughter in education, riding, boat rowing. After marriage with Henry Stanton, she bore seven children. She was encouraged to organize a meeting of women by her friend Lucretia Mott. On 17 July, 1848, she organized a meeting of women at small Church at Seneca Falls. Here she read about women suffrage and how the right to vote by women could change laws for women. News of the meeting was widely reported by newspapers from Maine to California. People reacted in favour and against it. In 1869, she and Susan B Anthony formed National Women Suffrage Association. Elizabeth remained its President for 21 years. In the year 1907, her daughter Harriet Stanton Beltch established Equity League with self-helping women. She expired on 26 October, 1902. In August, 1918, 19th amendment in American Constitution was made to include women suffrage. Her birthday is celebrated as Stanton Day. From 2006 onwards, her birthday is declared as official holiday in New York State. I have read this book in Hindi language. Colored illustrations help the reader to relate to the story.
November 30, 2019
Elizabeth C. Stanton grew up as a rebellious girl in a society in which women were generally second class citizens. She often competed with boys in high school and college showing to be very intelligent and a good debater and speaker. She married making her an unusual feminist at that time. Her attendance at the Anti-slavery convention in England seemingly woke her up to the notion that women needed to organized just as the anti-slavery people had. Stanton will always be defined by the Seneca Falls Convention and her rewrite of the Dec. of Ind. including women and their rights. Stanton emerged as the philosopher of the women’s rights movement realizing that the struggle for individual rights must include women as well as men. Ginzberg spends a fair amount of time comparing E. C. Stanton and Susan B. Anthony suggesting that they were opposites in their approach to women’s rights but complemented each other in their efforts. Sadly, later in life Stanton argued for “educated suffrage” which put white women over blacks and immigrant women which betrayed a racist approach to women’s suffrage. This was likely a response to black men getting the right to vote in the 15th amendment which many suffragists supported thinking that it would include women as well in the amendment. A realistic read into the life of E. C. Stanton.
August 11, 2023
I think the strongest element of Ginzberg's short biography of Elizabeth Cady Stanton is her approach to her subject. While so many biographies turn into hagiographies, and some authors try to break the mold by relentlessly critiquing theirs, Ginzberg's treatment of Stanton is a model. She takes an honest look at Stanton's strengths and weaknesses. Her tone is often ironic and wry, and it gives the reader a sense that Ginzberg is sharing insight about a friend she knows well.
Ginzberg takes pains to situate Stanton within the context of American reform efforts and the larger women's rights movement, both nationally and transatlantically, which helps demystify Stanton and elevate other leaders, such as the Motts and Coffins.
My biggest critique of the book is that in her conclusion, Ginzberg claims a couple times the significance of associating the women's movement with Susan B. Anthony, rather than Stanton, but never argues what that significance is. It seems a really important and interesting argument not pursued. (A smaller issue would be that while Ginzberg examines the Stanton-Stone split in the women's suffrage movement during Reconstruction, she ignores some of the longer-term consequences of that split.)
Ginzberg takes pains to situate Stanton within the context of American reform efforts and the larger women's rights movement, both nationally and transatlantically, which helps demystify Stanton and elevate other leaders, such as the Motts and Coffins.
My biggest critique of the book is that in her conclusion, Ginzberg claims a couple times the significance of associating the women's movement with Susan B. Anthony, rather than Stanton, but never argues what that significance is. It seems a really important and interesting argument not pursued. (A smaller issue would be that while Ginzberg examines the Stanton-Stone split in the women's suffrage movement during Reconstruction, she ignores some of the longer-term consequences of that split.)
September 10, 2011
c2009
I have learned that the scientific and medical opinion of the times was that women didn't have enough brain capacity to be full citizens ( and moreso with regard to blacks) and that is a key reason for denying woman the vote. None of the reviews below indicates that this book takes on this issue. Also not noted below is that she had 6 children which was coincidentally exactly the scientific Rx for how to have enough white children to make up for how many mongrel races were being allowed to immigrate to the USA. We know she was racist (although she politely covered it over in the early years of her organizing) and classist but how much did she buy into the so-called science of races of the times?
from the library computer:
Booklist Reviews
In 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York, in the midst of arguments within the abolition movement, activist women came together to ponder the need for a movement specifically to address their concerns. Stanton emerged as a leading figure, arguing vehemently for suffrage disconnected from the issue of the abolition of slavery. Her husband was a star speaker on the abolitionist circuit but lukewarm on women's rights, worried that it would distract from the more urgent issue of ending slavery. Historian Ginzberg draws on Stanton's prolific writings in speeches, diaries, articles, as well as correspondence and other historical accounts to understand why the leader for women's suffrage was eventually eclipsed by others, including her friend of 50 years, Susan B. Anthony. Anthony, a Quaker, was severe and strict, but Stanton was well-off and indulgent, charming, and arrogant. Stanton's sometimes racist positions in defense of women's rights and her restless skipping from issue to issue—the vote, marriage and children, freedom from religious constraints—have rendered her legacy "slippery." Ginzberg offers a compelling look at a complex woman in pre-feminist history. Copyright 2009 Booklist Reviews.
Choice Reviews
Elizabeth Cady Stanton receives rigorous scholarly attention in Ginzberg's biography, which supersedes earlier publications, including Elisabeth Griffith's In Her Own Right: The Life of Elizabeth Cady Stanton (CH, Jan'85) and Lois W. Banner's Elizabeth Cady Stanton: A Radical for Woman's Rights (CH, May'80). Possessing one of the 19th-century's most formidable minds, Stanton entered into debates about slavery, temperance, and woman's rights. Ginzberg, who has published extensively on antebellum reform, rightly appreciates Stanton as a public intellectual profoundly involved in the discourse of her day. The author shows how Stanton defied contemporary conventions to propose reforms realized only in the 20th century. In this well-written biography, Stanton appears with all her defects: she did make anti-immigrant, racist comments as she pursued her goal of universal adult suffrage. Without apology, Ginzberg (Penn State) explains how Stanton's class background and political objectives shaped her thought. Readers will learn of the tensions in her partnership with Susan B. Anthony, a corrective to Geoffrey C. Ward's Not for Ourselves Alone (1999). No short biography, nevertheless, can analyze fully the complexity and depth of Stanton's thought. Advanced undergraduates should consult Sue Davis's The Political Thought of Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Women's Rights and the American Political Traditions (CH, Jan'09, 46-2927). Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries. Copyright 2010 American Library Association.
Kirkus Reviews
A well-documented, well-balanced account of the life of "the founding philosopher of the American movement for woman's rights."Ginzberg (History and Women's Studies/Penn State Univ.; Untidy Origins: A Story of Woman's Rights in Antebellum New York, 2005, etc.) offers a full-length portrait of a brilliant, confident, assertive woman for whom raising seven children was no bar to remarkable activism in the cause of women's rights. The author shows us Stanton in her many roles: child, wife, mother, author and campaigner. At the International Anti-Slavery Convention in London in 1840, Stanton was outraged to discover that women were not allowed to participate. Eight years later, in Seneca Falls, N.Y., she helped organize the first women's-rights convention. Stanton drafted the convention's Declaration of Sentiments, which was modeled on the United States Declaration of Independence and proclaimed that men and women are created equal. For years she and Susan B. Anthony collaborated, with Stanton primarily writing and Anthony traveling and speaking. After the Civil War, the two women broke with their former colleagues, the abolitionists, and lobbied against granting African-American men the right to vote, with Stanton arguing that the votes of educated women were needed to offset those of former slaves. Ginzberg notes that the image this created of the woman's suffrage movement as primarily concerned with the rights of middle-class white women was not entirely false. When her children were older, Stanton traveled extensively on the lecture circuit, where she campaigned vigorously for the property rights of married women, for equal guardianship of children and for liberalized divorce laws. Deploring the position of women within organized Christianity, she wrote The Woman's Bible to correct the sexism she found in scripture. Despite her flaws of elitism and racism, Stanton, Ginzberg argues, used her powerful intellect and her persuasive prose to challenge the nation to see women as full citizens.Brings to life a complex woman whose place in the history of women's rights has been somewhat overshadowed by that of her colleague Susan B. Anthony. Copyright Kirkus 2009 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.
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I have learned that the scientific and medical opinion of the times was that women didn't have enough brain capacity to be full citizens ( and moreso with regard to blacks) and that is a key reason for denying woman the vote. None of the reviews below indicates that this book takes on this issue. Also not noted below is that she had 6 children which was coincidentally exactly the scientific Rx for how to have enough white children to make up for how many mongrel races were being allowed to immigrate to the USA. We know she was racist (although she politely covered it over in the early years of her organizing) and classist but how much did she buy into the so-called science of races of the times?
from the library computer:
Booklist Reviews
In 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York, in the midst of arguments within the abolition movement, activist women came together to ponder the need for a movement specifically to address their concerns. Stanton emerged as a leading figure, arguing vehemently for suffrage disconnected from the issue of the abolition of slavery. Her husband was a star speaker on the abolitionist circuit but lukewarm on women's rights, worried that it would distract from the more urgent issue of ending slavery. Historian Ginzberg draws on Stanton's prolific writings in speeches, diaries, articles, as well as correspondence and other historical accounts to understand why the leader for women's suffrage was eventually eclipsed by others, including her friend of 50 years, Susan B. Anthony. Anthony, a Quaker, was severe and strict, but Stanton was well-off and indulgent, charming, and arrogant. Stanton's sometimes racist positions in defense of women's rights and her restless skipping from issue to issue—the vote, marriage and children, freedom from religious constraints—have rendered her legacy "slippery." Ginzberg offers a compelling look at a complex woman in pre-feminist history. Copyright 2009 Booklist Reviews.
Choice Reviews
Elizabeth Cady Stanton receives rigorous scholarly attention in Ginzberg's biography, which supersedes earlier publications, including Elisabeth Griffith's In Her Own Right: The Life of Elizabeth Cady Stanton (CH, Jan'85) and Lois W. Banner's Elizabeth Cady Stanton: A Radical for Woman's Rights (CH, May'80). Possessing one of the 19th-century's most formidable minds, Stanton entered into debates about slavery, temperance, and woman's rights. Ginzberg, who has published extensively on antebellum reform, rightly appreciates Stanton as a public intellectual profoundly involved in the discourse of her day. The author shows how Stanton defied contemporary conventions to propose reforms realized only in the 20th century. In this well-written biography, Stanton appears with all her defects: she did make anti-immigrant, racist comments as she pursued her goal of universal adult suffrage. Without apology, Ginzberg (Penn State) explains how Stanton's class background and political objectives shaped her thought. Readers will learn of the tensions in her partnership with Susan B. Anthony, a corrective to Geoffrey C. Ward's Not for Ourselves Alone (1999). No short biography, nevertheless, can analyze fully the complexity and depth of Stanton's thought. Advanced undergraduates should consult Sue Davis's The Political Thought of Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Women's Rights and the American Political Traditions (CH, Jan'09, 46-2927). Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries. Copyright 2010 American Library Association.
Kirkus Reviews
A well-documented, well-balanced account of the life of "the founding philosopher of the American movement for woman's rights."Ginzberg (History and Women's Studies/Penn State Univ.; Untidy Origins: A Story of Woman's Rights in Antebellum New York, 2005, etc.) offers a full-length portrait of a brilliant, confident, assertive woman for whom raising seven children was no bar to remarkable activism in the cause of women's rights. The author shows us Stanton in her many roles: child, wife, mother, author and campaigner. At the International Anti-Slavery Convention in London in 1840, Stanton was outraged to discover that women were not allowed to participate. Eight years later, in Seneca Falls, N.Y., she helped organize the first women's-rights convention. Stanton drafted the convention's Declaration of Sentiments, which was modeled on the United States Declaration of Independence and proclaimed that men and women are created equal. For years she and Susan B. Anthony collaborated, with Stanton primarily writing and Anthony traveling and speaking. After the Civil War, the two women broke with their former colleagues, the abolitionists, and lobbied against granting African-American men the right to vote, with Stanton arguing that the votes of educated women were needed to offset those of former slaves. Ginzberg notes that the image this created of the woman's suffrage movement as primarily concerned with the rights of middle-class white women was not entirely false. When her children were older, Stanton traveled extensively on the lecture circuit, where she campaigned vigorously for the property rights of married women, for equal guardianship of children and for liberalized divorce laws. Deploring the position of women within organized Christianity, she wrote The Woman's Bible to correct the sexism she found in scripture. Despite her flaws of elitism and racism, Stanton, Ginzberg argues, used her powerful intellect and her persuasive prose to challenge the nation to see women as full citizens.Brings to life a complex woman whose place in the history of women's rights has been somewhat overshadowed by that of her colleague Susan B. Anthony. Copyright Kirkus 2009 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.
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August 22, 2018
A short, concise, and readable biography. Ginzberg is critical of Stanton, but I don't think she is unfair. Stanton was a brilliant, intellectual thinker, but she knew it and didn't suffer from many self doubts. She was impatient, controversial, and loved a good fight. At the same time she had an energetic personality and was a wonderful conversationalist, so she was interesting and fun to be around. In other words, she was very complex and I think Ginzberg does an excellent job of parsing the information and contemporary accounts to give us a good view into one of the 19th century's most well-known and important women's rights advocates. It's a quick read and I highly recommend it for those interested in women's history or in 19th century activism.
December 1, 2018
The author is great at calling Staton out while also remarking what she offered the women’s suffrage movement. Although I disagree with Stanton’s views about race and education suffrage after she felt betrayed because women didn’t get the right to vote along with black men I think that her other views were simply ahead of her time. Making her seem less likable at the time but by today’s standards her views would be well regarded. This is also a good book for anyone that wants to learn about Susan B Anthony since you can’t really write about Stanton without talking about Anthony. Their team work really helped the movement move forward.
June 29, 2023
A very readable summary and analysis of a famous figurehead and orator. We can be impressed at ECS's energy, reputed charm, curiosity, self-education, voluminous writings. ECS was a provacateur, ahead of her time. I am dismayed at her narrow focus on upper-middle-class white women's interests, and disparagement of basically everyone else. The women's suffrage movement separated itself from the abolition movement with great sacrifice of its principles. As the book notes, the suffrage movement shifted to alignment with Susan B. Anthony as its forebear.
November 17, 2017
Witty and well-written, this is a pleasure to read. Ginzberg handles ECS's checkered legacy with great nuance.
January 14, 2018
I think the author's judgments and interpretation of Stanton are a bit harsh, but overall, a well researched and nicely written biography.
July 7, 2020
This is a solid biography.
November 21, 2020
A woman larger than life.
September 30, 2015
Although I've read a lot of American history, I've long been aware that I had read very little about the women's suffrage movement. When I saw this slim biography of Elizabeth Cady Stanton on a table at a discount book store, I took advantage of the chance to rectify this omission.
This probably wasn't a good choice for a first book to read on the topic. The focus is narrow; we follow Stanton through her life but we don't learn much about the other aspects of the early feminist movement. Susan B. Anthony is fairly prominent, but only get to know her in contrast to Stanton. I think I would have appreciated the book more if I had previous read one or two big thick books about women's rights in the 19th Century.
That being said, Lori Ginzberg's book is very well researched, and well written too. I learned (or perhaps was reminded) that the early suffragists were struggling for more than just the right to vote. Stanton took on other feminist issues as well, and with gusto: Women's rights to property held in marriage, and to divorce; how women are portrayed in the bible, and much more. The women's rights movement also overlapped at times with that of abolition. Frederick Douglass makes a few appearances as well.
We also learn about the origin of "bloomers" and my favorite fun fact from the book: In the 19th Century, applause was limited to men. Yes, only men could clap their hands; women instead would wave white handkerchiefs.
This probably wasn't a good choice for a first book to read on the topic. The focus is narrow; we follow Stanton through her life but we don't learn much about the other aspects of the early feminist movement. Susan B. Anthony is fairly prominent, but only get to know her in contrast to Stanton. I think I would have appreciated the book more if I had previous read one or two big thick books about women's rights in the 19th Century.
That being said, Lori Ginzberg's book is very well researched, and well written too. I learned (or perhaps was reminded) that the early suffragists were struggling for more than just the right to vote. Stanton took on other feminist issues as well, and with gusto: Women's rights to property held in marriage, and to divorce; how women are portrayed in the bible, and much more. The women's rights movement also overlapped at times with that of abolition. Frederick Douglass makes a few appearances as well.
We also learn about the origin of "bloomers" and my favorite fun fact from the book: In the 19th Century, applause was limited to men. Yes, only men could clap their hands; women instead would wave white handkerchiefs.
March 9, 2014
Elizabeth Cady Stanton is not a name often heard or read about unlike her contemporary Susan B. Anthony, even though these two women were great friends. Indeed so close were they that really in history one cannot exist without the other. They were soul mates, as the author tells to us, in a way I believe that to be the case. However, this book is best understood if the reader has any idea of American history, I have none. But for all her faults and strengths of character I was able to appreciate Stanton. In the history of Woman this book does make you think how far women have come and yet how far we still have to go. Not just women only, but men as well, in their relationships with women. It would be too easy to say Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a woman of her era. As the author points out that is not quite the case. She was no saint, she was no sinner, she was radical, startling a fraction to her period, but she could have been so much more. She was full of herself in the image sense, and it is the greatest pity of her intelligence to have narrow viewpoints of the African Americans, the Jews and other minorities that weren't educated refined ladies. The early women's movement could have been so much more and got us so much further if they had allowed into their circles women of other classes and black women. Perhaps the book is not the ideal kind for an introduction to Stanton, however, it is a well written book nonetheless and one worth the read.
October 25, 2010
This brief (almost 200 pages) biography of Elizabeth Cady Stanton races through the life of one of America's earliest feminist leaders, but still manages to convey a powerful sense of her intellectual dynamism, forceful self-confidence, and how she fit into the reformers community of her time. The focus of the book remains firmly on Stanton's ideas and writings, rather than the personal events of the subjects life - whether this is because Stanton and her children went to such effort to edit anything too personal out of her papers, or because the biographer firmly intended this to be a short and focused book, I'm not sure.
Stanton spent her life working for womens' rights, beginning with but not solely attaining the vote. Ginzberg points out how Stanton overlooked the valid claims of former slaves and the working poor, but also how she took on marriage law and the church as forces keeping women from reaching their full potential. This book was a fascinating look at a fierce and vital intellect. Being a fan of traditional biographies, I did wish for more detail occasionally, especially when Stanton died.
Stanton spent her life working for womens' rights, beginning with but not solely attaining the vote. Ginzberg points out how Stanton overlooked the valid claims of former slaves and the working poor, but also how she took on marriage law and the church as forces keeping women from reaching their full potential. This book was a fascinating look at a fierce and vital intellect. Being a fan of traditional biographies, I did wish for more detail occasionally, especially when Stanton died.
October 19, 2009
Knowing next to nothing about Elizabeth Cady Stanton, I was delighted to learn something about this suffragist (NOT woman suffragist, as Elizabeth Cady Staton would say). This highly readable biography gives a clear picture of the times (1815-1902), the customs and the life of this spirited lady. In this portrayal, Stanton is nothing but human. She's a brilliant writer and speaker for women's rights, but she is also uninterested in other human rights, such as slavery which was legal for most of her life. Stanton loved to shock people so they could talk about her and she could receive the attention she craved, such as wearing bloomers in public, humiliating her children. Yet without Elizabeth Cady Stanton on the American scene in the nineteenth century, we American women would not have the rights we have today. She anticipated the need for women to live self sufficient lives so she advocated child custody rights, property rights, educational rights and, of course, voting rights.
May 11, 2011
ECS is awesome. I'd like to read more about her, especially her lifelong friendship with Susan B. Anthony. I loved reading about how ECS progressed through various stages of radicalism and her (VERY FAMILIAR) frustrations with both her contemporaries and her feminist "neices".
The writing style was just OK, definitely on the dry side. The author suffered from "knowing too much about her subject" - for example, she assumed that her readers would know why Garrisonian theory about abolition was so important to ECS's contemporaries. That's a darned big assumption to make! Also, she suffered from the "I'll just tell them instead of show them" syndrome... For example, she went on an on about what a big personality ECS had, but she never really DEMONSTRATED it to my satisfaction. Plenty of material straight from ECS's pen still exists, but she chose to just tell us what ECS's personality was like.
The writing style was just OK, definitely on the dry side. The author suffered from "knowing too much about her subject" - for example, she assumed that her readers would know why Garrisonian theory about abolition was so important to ECS's contemporaries. That's a darned big assumption to make! Also, she suffered from the "I'll just tell them instead of show them" syndrome... For example, she went on an on about what a big personality ECS had, but she never really DEMONSTRATED it to my satisfaction. Plenty of material straight from ECS's pen still exists, but she chose to just tell us what ECS's personality was like.
December 19, 2011
I learned a lot about this amazing woman. Inspired, smart and ahead of her times in inumerable ways, and also tied to her times in some ultimately troubling almost disasterous ways. Does anyone else who read this see it as reminiscent of early 1970s feminisim when the fight was for white middle and well educated women's rights, not all women's rights? This book goes a long way to explain the rupture of the abolitionists and the sufrigests - I'd always wondered about that.
August 6, 2011
excellent book, only had to take a star off not for the book but because the ole cady stanton seemed sort of not anti-slavery and you just gotta slap her on the star for that. but the author made this go at a fast clip and jammed tons of info into a short book, another one you wish they'd make into a movie.
December 9, 2014
A fine biography of an engaging, important, and terribly flawed person, one whose legacy (for good and most certainly for ill) still affects us. Good book club selection - lots to discuss, including what is involved in the life of a public intellectual, political change, and making common cause (or not) with others suffering oppression.
April 18, 2014
Would love to read a better biography of ECS, if anyone knows of one. This one was disorganized and loaded down with author's views on how ECS should have done things better, in her opinion, would have liked more of ECS, less of Lori Ginzberg.
May 9, 2013
Review soon @ thefaeryromanticlibrarian.blogspot.com
August 29, 2016
A very good work on the life of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the beginning of the women's movement.
November 15, 2015
Hey, look at that! A biography that doesn't attempt to canonise its subject.
December 3, 2015
A fascinating book that does not sugar-coat the weaknesses of one of the most important early leaders of the suffrage movement.
Displaying 1 - 28 of 29 reviews