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With Courage and Cloth: Winning the Fight for a Woman's Right to Vote
An award-winning author chronicles the story of the women's suffrage movement in America, using compelling period photographs--including some never before published--to illustrate the vivid narrative.
112 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2004
3 people are currently reading
474 people want to read
About the author
Ann Bausum
28 books109 followersAnn Bausum writes about history for readers of all ages from her home in southern Wisconsin. Her works often focus on under-told stories from the past, and she frequently explores issues of social justice.
Her newest title, The March Against Fear (National Geographic: 2017), is her third work to examine the civil rights movement in the American South. In the case of these and other books, Bausum strives to bring the nation’s social justice history to life in ways that empower and inspire readers young and old alike. Her previous title, Stonewall (Viking: 2015), is among the first nonfiction books to introduce teens to gay rights history. Previous works have explored voting rights, immigration, and free speech, among other topics.
The almost-forgotten story of Stubby lured Bausum away from social justice history temporarily. She wrote twin titles about the stray dog smuggled to Europe during World War I who returned to a hero’s welcome. Both books were published in 2014 by National Geographic: Sergeant Stubby (for adult readers) and Stubby the War Dog (for children).
In the spring of 2017, the Children’s Book Guild of Washington, D.C., will honor the body of Bausum’s work by presenting her with its venerable Nonfiction Award. This award recognizes the consistent commendation earned by her individual titles through the years. Bausum’s books have appeared consistently on lists of recommended and notable titles and have earned numerous literary awards including a Sibert Honor Award, the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award, the Carter G. Woodson Award (on two occasions), and the SCBWI Golden Kite Award. In 2015, she was named the year’s Notable Wisconsin Children’s Author by the Wisconsin Library Association.
You may follow Bausum on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/AnnBausum) and Twitter (@AnnBausum) or visit her online at www.AnnBausum.com
Her newest title, The March Against Fear (National Geographic: 2017), is her third work to examine the civil rights movement in the American South. In the case of these and other books, Bausum strives to bring the nation’s social justice history to life in ways that empower and inspire readers young and old alike. Her previous title, Stonewall (Viking: 2015), is among the first nonfiction books to introduce teens to gay rights history. Previous works have explored voting rights, immigration, and free speech, among other topics.
The almost-forgotten story of Stubby lured Bausum away from social justice history temporarily. She wrote twin titles about the stray dog smuggled to Europe during World War I who returned to a hero’s welcome. Both books were published in 2014 by National Geographic: Sergeant Stubby (for adult readers) and Stubby the War Dog (for children).
In the spring of 2017, the Children’s Book Guild of Washington, D.C., will honor the body of Bausum’s work by presenting her with its venerable Nonfiction Award. This award recognizes the consistent commendation earned by her individual titles through the years. Bausum’s books have appeared consistently on lists of recommended and notable titles and have earned numerous literary awards including a Sibert Honor Award, the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award, the Carter G. Woodson Award (on two occasions), and the SCBWI Golden Kite Award. In 2015, she was named the year’s Notable Wisconsin Children’s Author by the Wisconsin Library Association.
You may follow Bausum on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/AnnBausum) and Twitter (@AnnBausum) or visit her online at www.AnnBausum.com
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 40 reviews
January 3, 2020
This book would be a great addition to a middle school or early high school civics class.
June 12, 2021
This book was very interesting, exciting and informative. The pictures and graphs were very high-quality and interesting, and I expected nothing less from National Geographic.I enjoyed learning about the Suffrage Movement through this book, and I hope other people will too.
December 5, 2009
To hear her tell it, Ann Bausum was inspired to write this book because of a childhood introduction to Alice Paul ("it's her strong gaze, more than anything else, that I've remembered . . . Plenty of flame remained in her eyes.") In With Courage and Cloth, Bausum pays tribute to the sacrifices and struggles of the suffragists who contributed to the passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. After a section giving background information on the movement that seems to have begun with a meeting in Seneca Falls, NY in 1848, this book moves to focus on the period between 1913 and 1920. In those seven years, the momentum was behind the suffrage movement, and it split into two complementary (though not always friendly) groups: Carrie Chapman Catt's larger and more conservative National American Woman Suffrage Association and Alice Paul's radical National Women's Party.
With Courage and Cloth is a well-researched and enlightening introduction to the suffrage movement in the United States. The design of the volume reflects the colors of the movement (purple, white, and gold), including purple and gold accents in the many historical photographs. After the main text, there are profiles of significant leaders, a chronology of the movement, a resource guide (including places to visit), source notes, a bibliography, and an index. Clearly, this is an excellent starting point for any young researcher interested in women's suffrage.
With Courage and Cloth is a well-researched and enlightening introduction to the suffrage movement in the United States. The design of the volume reflects the colors of the movement (purple, white, and gold), including purple and gold accents in the many historical photographs. After the main text, there are profiles of significant leaders, a chronology of the movement, a resource guide (including places to visit), source notes, a bibliography, and an index. Clearly, this is an excellent starting point for any young researcher interested in women's suffrage.
August 3, 2016
With Courage and Cloth / Anna Bausum / 2004
Genre: Non-Fiction
Format: juvenile non-fiction
Plot summary: Chronicles the final years of the struggle for women's voting rights, focusing on the activities of Alice Paul and the National Woman's Party and their part in the successful passage of the 19th Amendment.
Considerations: discussion of politics
Review citation: School Library Journal, vol 50, issue 9
" Bausum highlights the tension between these factions in well-documented detail and casts it against the greater picture of controversy within and surrounding the national and state governments, as well as World War I. She portrays her suffragist heroines as iron-jawed women totally devoted to their cause."
Section source: School Library Journal
Recommended age: 12 and up
Genre: Non-Fiction
Format: juvenile non-fiction
Plot summary: Chronicles the final years of the struggle for women's voting rights, focusing on the activities of Alice Paul and the National Woman's Party and their part in the successful passage of the 19th Amendment.
Considerations: discussion of politics
Review citation: School Library Journal, vol 50, issue 9
" Bausum highlights the tension between these factions in well-documented detail and casts it against the greater picture of controversy within and surrounding the national and state governments, as well as World War I. She portrays her suffragist heroines as iron-jawed women totally devoted to their cause."
Section source: School Library Journal
Recommended age: 12 and up
February 25, 2019
30 September 2004 WITH COURAGE AND CLOTH: WINNING THE FIGHT FOR A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO VOTE by Ann Bausum, National Geographic, September 2004, 112 pages, ISBN: 0-7922-7647-7
"...a discussion of the rights of animals would be regarded with more complacency by many...than would a discussion of the rights of women."
--Frederick Douglass speaking about the public's response to the Seneca Falls women's convention of 1848 which he had attended.
"Though we adore men individually
we agree that as a group they're rather stupid."
--"Sister Suffragette" from Walt Disney's Mary Poppins.
The part of the story that they left out of the Mary Poppins movie is when Mrs. Banks is abused by a mob of men and young boys and arrested for causing a disturbance even though she and her sisters-in-arms are quietly assembled--holding banners that quote the US Constitution and the current President's own words--and it's the men who are causing all the disturbance. They also left out the part where Mrs. Banks is abusively dragged into a dark prison, thrown in with rats, common criminals, blankets that get laundered once a year, and a bucket for a toilet. Nor do they show prison employees shoving the hose up Mrs. Banks's nose to force feed her when she decides to go on a hunger strike.
" 'These women have raised neither hand nor voice,' wrote one female reporter who eventually stood on the picket line herself and was arrested. 'They speak no word and do not attempt to defend themselves if attacked,' she explained."
But those omissions and discrepancies could be attributed to the fact that Mary Poppins takes place in jolly, old England, and it was in America during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson that all of these abuses were being endured by the informed women who had resolve to organize and question how the US could be fighting for democracy in Europe while simultaneously denying democratic participation--the Vote--to women at home.
Being able to speak freely is what America is all about, right?
But students of American history know that there are times when Freedom of Speech seems to be reserved for only SOME Americans, those who agree with the government.
"Now, however, the growing nationalism of wartime made such protests seem, as reported in newspapers, 'unwomanly,' 'unpatriotic,' 'dangerous,' 'undesirable,' even 'treasonable.' "
(Sound familiar?)
The central focus of WITH COURAGE AND CLOTH: WINNING THE FIGHT FOR A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO VOTE is on the years of widespread activism and protest directly preceding the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. And it is during those final years of a fight that began in earnest back in Seneca Falls in 1848 that we so clearly see the parallels between the suffering of those brave Americans involved in the Women's Suffrage Movement and the violence and repression faced by those in the Civil Rights Movement; those images that so many of us watched either on television or firsthand; those images that so many of us will never forget.
Another parallel that I found interesting involves the fact that:
"The period from 1896 to 1910 (during which no states adopted woman suffrage) became known as the 'doldrums' of the movement. The wind seemed to go out of the sails of the cause. No matter how hard suffragists argued in support of votes for women, they could not muster the momentum to overcome the anitsuffragists, or 'Antis,' who opposed them."
It would seem to me not to be coincidental that the same year that the US Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that "separate but equal" was permissible, leading to baseball owners successfully conspiring to eliminate people of color from the Major Leagues for half a century, and leading to the growth of all those other insidious tentacles of apartheid that spread across America and took hold of it, that American women would face a similar fate at the hands of white paternalism.
"It's grand to be an Englishman in 1910
King Edward's on the throne;
it's the age of men"
--"The Life I Lead," from Disney's Mary Poppins
It is during this period that several award-winning historic novels dealing with oppressed young women are set: Jennifer Donnelly's A NORTHERN LIGHT and Jennifer Holms's OUR ONLY MAY AMELIA quickly come to mind. To read that scene in A NORTHERN LIGHT where the well-educated "Miss Wilcox" is offered the choice by her husband of either complying with his demands or being institutionalized as mentally unfit provides an understanding of what kind of power men wielded over women. WITH COURAGE AND CLOTH will make a great companion for these books.
Thank goodness for the Senator we meet in WITH COURAGE AND CLOTH, a man who listened to his mother and allowed this particular phase of injustice by the minority of the American population against the majority to come to an end.
Of course, eighty-four years (and 15 white male Presidents) later, some readers will surely pause to wonder why there remain such wide disparities between the portion of the population that is female (the majority) and that meager portion of America's decision making elite (President, Congress, state legislators and governors, top jurists, CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, presidents of major universities, generals, and presidential advisors) who are women.
That's a debate we won't be seeing tonight.
Richie Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks http://richiespicks.pbworks.com
https://www.facebook.com/richiespicks/
richiepartington@gmail.com
"...a discussion of the rights of animals would be regarded with more complacency by many...than would a discussion of the rights of women."
--Frederick Douglass speaking about the public's response to the Seneca Falls women's convention of 1848 which he had attended.
"Though we adore men individually
we agree that as a group they're rather stupid."
--"Sister Suffragette" from Walt Disney's Mary Poppins.
The part of the story that they left out of the Mary Poppins movie is when Mrs. Banks is abused by a mob of men and young boys and arrested for causing a disturbance even though she and her sisters-in-arms are quietly assembled--holding banners that quote the US Constitution and the current President's own words--and it's the men who are causing all the disturbance. They also left out the part where Mrs. Banks is abusively dragged into a dark prison, thrown in with rats, common criminals, blankets that get laundered once a year, and a bucket for a toilet. Nor do they show prison employees shoving the hose up Mrs. Banks's nose to force feed her when she decides to go on a hunger strike.
" 'These women have raised neither hand nor voice,' wrote one female reporter who eventually stood on the picket line herself and was arrested. 'They speak no word and do not attempt to defend themselves if attacked,' she explained."
But those omissions and discrepancies could be attributed to the fact that Mary Poppins takes place in jolly, old England, and it was in America during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson that all of these abuses were being endured by the informed women who had resolve to organize and question how the US could be fighting for democracy in Europe while simultaneously denying democratic participation--the Vote--to women at home.
Being able to speak freely is what America is all about, right?
But students of American history know that there are times when Freedom of Speech seems to be reserved for only SOME Americans, those who agree with the government.
"Now, however, the growing nationalism of wartime made such protests seem, as reported in newspapers, 'unwomanly,' 'unpatriotic,' 'dangerous,' 'undesirable,' even 'treasonable.' "
(Sound familiar?)
The central focus of WITH COURAGE AND CLOTH: WINNING THE FIGHT FOR A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO VOTE is on the years of widespread activism and protest directly preceding the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. And it is during those final years of a fight that began in earnest back in Seneca Falls in 1848 that we so clearly see the parallels between the suffering of those brave Americans involved in the Women's Suffrage Movement and the violence and repression faced by those in the Civil Rights Movement; those images that so many of us watched either on television or firsthand; those images that so many of us will never forget.
Another parallel that I found interesting involves the fact that:
"The period from 1896 to 1910 (during which no states adopted woman suffrage) became known as the 'doldrums' of the movement. The wind seemed to go out of the sails of the cause. No matter how hard suffragists argued in support of votes for women, they could not muster the momentum to overcome the anitsuffragists, or 'Antis,' who opposed them."
It would seem to me not to be coincidental that the same year that the US Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that "separate but equal" was permissible, leading to baseball owners successfully conspiring to eliminate people of color from the Major Leagues for half a century, and leading to the growth of all those other insidious tentacles of apartheid that spread across America and took hold of it, that American women would face a similar fate at the hands of white paternalism.
"It's grand to be an Englishman in 1910
King Edward's on the throne;
it's the age of men"
--"The Life I Lead," from Disney's Mary Poppins
It is during this period that several award-winning historic novels dealing with oppressed young women are set: Jennifer Donnelly's A NORTHERN LIGHT and Jennifer Holms's OUR ONLY MAY AMELIA quickly come to mind. To read that scene in A NORTHERN LIGHT where the well-educated "Miss Wilcox" is offered the choice by her husband of either complying with his demands or being institutionalized as mentally unfit provides an understanding of what kind of power men wielded over women. WITH COURAGE AND CLOTH will make a great companion for these books.
Thank goodness for the Senator we meet in WITH COURAGE AND CLOTH, a man who listened to his mother and allowed this particular phase of injustice by the minority of the American population against the majority to come to an end.
Of course, eighty-four years (and 15 white male Presidents) later, some readers will surely pause to wonder why there remain such wide disparities between the portion of the population that is female (the majority) and that meager portion of America's decision making elite (President, Congress, state legislators and governors, top jurists, CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, presidents of major universities, generals, and presidential advisors) who are women.
That's a debate we won't be seeing tonight.
Richie Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks http://richiespicks.pbworks.com
https://www.facebook.com/richiespicks/
richiepartington@gmail.com
May 22, 2024
Set throughout the United States. 112 pp. I didn’t immediately realize this is geared to middle grades. I was troubled by some of the phrasing that could be interpreted that because of the efforts to improve the situation of former slaves after the Civil War, women’s rights were not able to move forward. There’s no clarity that the women’s suffrage movement was primarily for white women.
The book is a reasonable introduction to the topic, but it misses some important nuances. Just because it’s a middle school book doesn’t mean it can’t address such topics.
With Courage and Cloth: Winning the Fight for a Womans Right to Vote by Ann Bausum
The book is a reasonable introduction to the topic, but it misses some important nuances. Just because it’s a middle school book doesn’t mean it can’t address such topics.
With Courage and Cloth: Winning the Fight for a Womans Right to Vote by Ann Bausum
February 4, 2018
This is a young adult history of the woman's right to vote movement. Every woman should read this so we can be grateful for the right to vote and to be grateful that we didn't have to go through what those courageous woman went through. I knew that Utah voted for suffrage early in the movement and I'm so proud of my Mormon heritage. Early on Mormon leadership always wanted women to have equal rights. Let it be so today.
September 23, 2025
This one was not in my county library collection & since it's on one of my favorite topics, I had to hit the used book sites to order my own copy. Now it will be loaned to my book club friends, who will enjoy this succinct & informative middle grade look at the suffragists, with the emphasis on the 1917-1920 fight for the vote. It includes fascinating photos & a great set of short bios at the end.
July 4, 2018
This book gave a good overviews of some of the women that were involved in the right to vote movement. It was a quick read, with good basic information, and probably well suited to middle-school students.
November 8, 2018
In all the history courses I’ve taken I’ve never learned the extent of the battle for women’s suffrage. Every girl or woman should read this. Our foremothers fought a hard battle for our rights. They should be remembered and honored.
April 21, 2022
A short, but informative history of women suffragists, including many women I had never really learned about. It gave me whole new respect for 1st wave feminists, and made me see my voting rights as something I should never take for granted.
October 7, 2022
Excellent historical! It is election time and this book is a reminder that women endured torture, death, rape and starvation to get to vote. I would recommend this to anyone, any woman and start your daughters early and read this to them!
March 7, 2023
I love a good historical piece. I cried a lot - mostly because so many of the historical figures in a textbook are men and it’s a pleasure to read the stories of women who fought so hard for equality.
April 30, 2018
Quotable:
[M]y childhood history book made no mention of Alice Paul and a fight for women's rights... Except for a few scattered figures, women had apparently stayed home while history happened.
[M]y childhood history book made no mention of Alice Paul and a fight for women's rights... Except for a few scattered figures, women had apparently stayed home while history happened.
June 8, 2021
Quick and informative read about the women's suffrage movement.
February 4, 2025
“They clapped so enthusiastically that they split the seams of their gloves.”
October 2, 2008
What I found most interesting was that I've never learned about this before, and I'm a hisotry major! The treatment of these women by the US government. Even though these women held peaceful demonstrations, they were arrested, beaten, and force fed when they help hunger protests. Police didn't even prevent angry mobs from abusing them during parades.
Year of Pub: 2004
Publisher: National Geographic Society, Washington, DC
Booklist
( October 15, 2004 ; 0-7922-6996-9 )
Gr. 6-12. Though few readers will pick this up for browsing, students will be easily drawn by the details of the American women's suffrage movement. As a child, the author met Alice Paul, a famous suffragist, and was clearly inspired. This personal interest drives the detailed history, written in an objective but anecdotal fashion. The design is thoughtful and attractive: sepia-tone photographs are highlighted in purple and gold (purple, gold, and white were the signature colors of the movement), the dark purple text is clean, elegant and very readable, and the general layout is artfully done. Detailed notes, bibliography, thumbnail biographies, and a chronology make this an all-in-one text that provides a general background to a very specific time within the movement. The timely release of this title will make every woman more appreciative of the Nineteenth Amendment, as well as the tremendous sacrifices that made it happen. --Debbie Carton Copyright 2004 Booklist
Back to TopBack to Top
School Library Journal
( September 01, 2004 ; 0-7922-6996-9 )
Gr 7 Up-Bausum peels back the layers of the story of the women's suffrage movement, exposing grit, fiery determination, and radical tactics. After covering the importance of familiar names, she devotes the bulk of the book to the events of 1906 to 1920, when a new group of young women emerged who were willing to truly suffer for suffrage. The movement split into two camps-Carrie Chapman Catt's larger National American Woman Suffrage Association working conservatively to gain the vote state by state, and a smaller, more contentiously radical organization, the National Woman's Party led by Alice Paul, focusing on a federal amendment. Bausum highlights the tension between these factions in well-documented detail and casts it against the greater picture of controversy within and surrounding the national and state governments, as well as World War I. She portrays her suffragist heroines as iron-jawed women totally devoted to their cause. Cloth is a recurrent theme, as the author describes the suffragists' tricolored banners, sashes, pennants, and sewn signs. Vintage photographs, some never before published, depict key figures in the movement speaking, protesting, parading, picketing, and going to jail. Bausum's careful research is evident throughout, with sources thoroughly cited and a text studded with original source quotations. Judy Monroe's The Nineteenth Amendment (Enslow, 1998) also includes lesser-known characters and vintage photos and anecdotal material, but lacks the vitality of Bausum's vivid presentation.-Joyce Adams Burner, Hillcrest Library, Prairie Village, KS Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Year of Pub: 2004
Publisher: National Geographic Society, Washington, DC
Booklist
( October 15, 2004 ; 0-7922-6996-9 )
Gr. 6-12. Though few readers will pick this up for browsing, students will be easily drawn by the details of the American women's suffrage movement. As a child, the author met Alice Paul, a famous suffragist, and was clearly inspired. This personal interest drives the detailed history, written in an objective but anecdotal fashion. The design is thoughtful and attractive: sepia-tone photographs are highlighted in purple and gold (purple, gold, and white were the signature colors of the movement), the dark purple text is clean, elegant and very readable, and the general layout is artfully done. Detailed notes, bibliography, thumbnail biographies, and a chronology make this an all-in-one text that provides a general background to a very specific time within the movement. The timely release of this title will make every woman more appreciative of the Nineteenth Amendment, as well as the tremendous sacrifices that made it happen. --Debbie Carton Copyright 2004 Booklist
Back to TopBack to Top
School Library Journal
( September 01, 2004 ; 0-7922-6996-9 )
Gr 7 Up-Bausum peels back the layers of the story of the women's suffrage movement, exposing grit, fiery determination, and radical tactics. After covering the importance of familiar names, she devotes the bulk of the book to the events of 1906 to 1920, when a new group of young women emerged who were willing to truly suffer for suffrage. The movement split into two camps-Carrie Chapman Catt's larger National American Woman Suffrage Association working conservatively to gain the vote state by state, and a smaller, more contentiously radical organization, the National Woman's Party led by Alice Paul, focusing on a federal amendment. Bausum highlights the tension between these factions in well-documented detail and casts it against the greater picture of controversy within and surrounding the national and state governments, as well as World War I. She portrays her suffragist heroines as iron-jawed women totally devoted to their cause. Cloth is a recurrent theme, as the author describes the suffragists' tricolored banners, sashes, pennants, and sewn signs. Vintage photographs, some never before published, depict key figures in the movement speaking, protesting, parading, picketing, and going to jail. Bausum's careful research is evident throughout, with sources thoroughly cited and a text studded with original source quotations. Judy Monroe's The Nineteenth Amendment (Enslow, 1998) also includes lesser-known characters and vintage photos and anecdotal material, but lacks the vitality of Bausum's vivid presentation.-Joyce Adams Burner, Hillcrest Library, Prairie Village, KS Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
December 13, 2012
A part of American History not focused on nearly enough.
I became interested in this subject when I went to turn in my ballot for this last election. I was making my way into our local elections office to drop off my ballot with my daughters and trying to explain to my five year old about civic duty and the need to make our voices heard when it struck me it hadn’t always been a duty for women, but a right that had to be fought for. In school I don’t recall too much being said about the history of the Women’s right to vote and decided then and there it was time I started to educate myself.
The format was a little unexpected for me, but I attribute that to my own lack of awareness when I was doing research into the subject. Sometimes trying to find books available at my small library on subjects I’m interested in is a little difficult. This, however, did prove to be a valuable overview on American women’s fight for the right to vote. Heroes like Alice Paul need to be remembered. They remind us we have the power to change our society with dedication, perseverance and hard work – ideas I would like to instill into my children. They also remind us to not take lightly our rights and to jealously covet them from those who would try and lessen them.
This book is written for children, but I found it invaluable. Written in easy to digest, but poignant bits of information, it provides snap shots of the main players and a sequence of event leading up to the final goal. The pictures and quotes artfully featured throughout the book highlight attitudes and the era in which the last push took place. The Bibliography provides a great guide for further reading. There is also a section giving information about some of the main women supporters, helping clarify who each one is ( when reading the story I found on occasion I got the people mixed up and this section helped straighten out everything beautifully). This is a book I plan on adding to my children’s book shelf and is worthy to be added to all children’s libraries.
I became interested in this subject when I went to turn in my ballot for this last election. I was making my way into our local elections office to drop off my ballot with my daughters and trying to explain to my five year old about civic duty and the need to make our voices heard when it struck me it hadn’t always been a duty for women, but a right that had to be fought for. In school I don’t recall too much being said about the history of the Women’s right to vote and decided then and there it was time I started to educate myself.
The format was a little unexpected for me, but I attribute that to my own lack of awareness when I was doing research into the subject. Sometimes trying to find books available at my small library on subjects I’m interested in is a little difficult. This, however, did prove to be a valuable overview on American women’s fight for the right to vote. Heroes like Alice Paul need to be remembered. They remind us we have the power to change our society with dedication, perseverance and hard work – ideas I would like to instill into my children. They also remind us to not take lightly our rights and to jealously covet them from those who would try and lessen them.
This book is written for children, but I found it invaluable. Written in easy to digest, but poignant bits of information, it provides snap shots of the main players and a sequence of event leading up to the final goal. The pictures and quotes artfully featured throughout the book highlight attitudes and the era in which the last push took place. The Bibliography provides a great guide for further reading. There is also a section giving information about some of the main women supporters, helping clarify who each one is ( when reading the story I found on occasion I got the people mixed up and this section helped straighten out everything beautifully). This is a book I plan on adding to my children’s book shelf and is worthy to be added to all children’s libraries.
August 25, 2011
I remember when I first saw the movie Iron Jawed Angels in a women's studies class in college. My first thought was, "Why didn't I learn about this in high school?" I find it curious that there is so little value given to women's suffrage. Every woman in America should see movies like Iron Jawed Angels and read books like this--hopefully it would encourage more people to use their hard-fought right to vote.
This book talks about women's suffrage in general, but more specifically focuses on Alice Paul and her more radical methods to get women the right to vote. Non-violent protests, civil disobedience, refusing to pay fines and going to jail instead, and hunger strikes while in jail were all part of her methods. She also protested during war time, which was unheard of at the time.
I highly recommend this for people who want to learn more about women's suffrage and some of the amazing ladies behind it.
This book talks about women's suffrage in general, but more specifically focuses on Alice Paul and her more radical methods to get women the right to vote. Non-violent protests, civil disobedience, refusing to pay fines and going to jail instead, and hunger strikes while in jail were all part of her methods. She also protested during war time, which was unheard of at the time.
I highly recommend this for people who want to learn more about women's suffrage and some of the amazing ladies behind it.
August 14, 2012
I would not recommend this book to children of any age. It is written in the style of a high school textbook with high-level vocabulary and a very dry, impersonal tone that is not engaging at all. The author attempts to aid children occasionally by defining unfamiliar words, but it is not done often enough and no other attempts are made to make this book interesting for children. No child would want to read this book on his or her own because it reads very much like a textbook, which children associate with school and boredom rather than pleasure reading. I might recommend it as a resource for teachers when teaching women’s suffrage to children because it has excellent pictures and accurate, well-condensed information, but otherwise it will not help encourage children to want to read nonfiction books and so should not be recommended either for reading aloud or individual reading.
October 7, 2010
The story of the suffrage movement the decade before the 19th Amendment was passed. I read this on the heels of watching Iron Jawed Angels, a great HBO film about Alice Paul, a young suffragist who led a more radicalized group of women in demonstrations and protests to lobby for an amendment to the constitution, rather than work for suffrage for women at the state level.
An amazing story that I knew nothing about. The text is a little dry, but the photos make the book.
An amazing story that I knew nothing about. The text is a little dry, but the photos make the book.
July 21, 2013
I learned a great deal about the struggle of women to earn the right to vote. This 72 year battle is documented in this beautifully designed and highly informative book that includes some amazing (and never seen) photographs, many digitized with the colors of yellow and purple, the colors of the movement. This addition of color makes the photos powerful and adds a great deal to the stories told within this book. A wonderful book on history, written in an interesting format.
February 24, 2014
This book provides insight into a part of American History that is not always touched on within textbooks. The hardship and inspiring courage that is revealed throughout the accounts provided within the book were enlightening as well as encouraging to me. The book is not very engaging for students to read on their own and is set up somewhat like a textbook, but is a good supporting material for teachers to use a resource.
October 12, 2007
If I were empress of the educational world, every high school student and every teacher would have to read this beautiful and splendid book about the last years of the fight for woman suffrage in the US, and the majesty of Alice Paul in that fight.
April 5, 2009
i'm glad they're finally teaching this now because they most certainly weren't when i was in grammar/high school a decade or so ago. i had no idea the sort of resistance the government put these women through. fantastic required reading in materials for ya.
July 9, 2014
This was a little superficial and seemed to be written for a younger audience (for example, the author explains what the word "franchise" means in relation to voting). It also focuses mainly on the final few years before ratification of the 19th amendment. Not a bad introduction, though.
March 22, 2016
another book that has been in "to read" pile for way too long. Learned a lot but oh the gold captioning under the pictures was just to hard for my "old eyes to read. Did love the significance of the purple and gold ink, though.
August 9, 2016
This was a fascinating book that opened my eyes to the history of women's right to vote. It is a great book with a good summation of the history of suffrage and how the 19th Amendment came to pass. Very recommended!
July 25, 2008
I can't believe how little I knew about the suffrage movement. These women were real heroes.
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