One Woman, One Vote: Rediscovering the Women's Suffrage Movement

by Marjorie J. Spruill (Editor)

Companion book to the PBS American Experience documentary by the same name, this anthology is the most comprehensive collection of writings — contemporary and historical — on the woman suffrage movement in America. It includes essays by the most prominent contemporary historians, many who challenge widely accepted theories and illustrate the diversity and complexity of the fight for the 19th Amendment.

Genres: History, Feminism, Nonfiction, Womens Studies

388 pages, Paperback

First published August 15, 1995

About the author

Dr. Marjorie J. Spruill is a historian who specializes in women and politics from the woman suffrage movement to the present, and in the history of the American South. Recently retired from teaching, she is a Professor Emerita at the University of South Carolina. Spruill previously taught at the University of Southern Mississippi, and was Associate Provost and Research Professor of History at Vanderbilt. She was a professor at the University of South Carolina from 2004 to 2017.

Reviews

[Letitia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent resource for anyone wanting to understand the 19th-20th century arc of the suffrage movement. It's a must-read for women's historians, and a good read for those who have strong curiosity about the topic.

This is extremely well-edited, pulling essays from specialists and original writings from the suffragists themselves to create a chronological narrative that spans nearly a hundred years. The introduction is one of the most concise and easily understood summations of what occurred in women's rights in that time frame. It does not shy away from the racial dynamics that defined the suffrage movement, its split, and its victories. At no point was the suffrage movement independent of civil rights for Black Americans. From the Seneca Falls Convention where women were told basically to take a seat because it "was the hour of the Negro", to Lucy Stone's split from Anthony and Stanton when Stone affirmed the 15th amendment and rights of Black men, to the exclusion of Black women from white suffrage organizations, all the way through state to state organizing efforts and the ratification of the 19th amendment, race produced schism upon schism within the movement. While Susan B. Anthony may have not been fully white supremacist herself, she certainly did not mind being chummy with them when they agreed to work for white women's suffrage. She and Stanton were bitter that immigrant and Black men could vote when they could not, and allied with racists willing to trade Negro rights for women's. Whether or not this hamstrung or propelled the movement seemed to vary by state, but it has left them standing in the shadow of the judgment of history in any case.

Though the essay selections in this collection are excellent (apart from the ones dealing with labor and socialist progressives, which are a little weak), it does become laboriously repetitive at times, and each essay could really be presented as a standalone if needed. This book would only have been better if the editor had taken upon herself to use the essays as source material, rather than the entirety of the text, and built upon her wonderful chronological summaries to deliver a more succinct and clear volume.

[Kate Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pick this one up if you want a detailed history of the American women's suffrage movement. Each chapter is written by a different author, most of them history professors. It answered a lot of questions I had about how the movement progressed, the nature of the internal disagreements and external opposition it faced, and ultimately why it took such an agonizingly long time to get women the vote. I also recommend the companion documentary film by the same title (PBS 2005).
So many heroic women stride through these pages! And how fortunate we are that they persevered.

[Sophia D · Rating 1 out of 5]

I couldn’t finish it. It was so boring half the time.

[Saebryn Peel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Carrie Chapman Catt’s second presidency (1915 to 1920) of the National American Woman Suffrage Movement and her decisions those were crucial to the success of the federal suffrage amendment in 1920.
Carrie Catt was a woman’s suffragist leader of the 1920s. She started many organizations and led them very well. Catt was one of the most influential women of the 1920s.
Catt had a pragmatic strategy in getting women’s rights. One of her plans, “The Winning Plan”, was designed to centralize authority within the massive National American Woman Suffrage Movement (NAWSA), and coordinate the efforts of strategist’s nationwide in a final campaign that would secure the adoption of the federal amendment at last. Catt’s “Winning Plan” was clearly a major factor in the final victory. Catt believed that every state should have a role in the suffrage movement where the leaders would then go to a nationwide meeting and develop a strategy. Carrie Catt wanted the NAWSA to only focus on one goal which was women’s suffrage. Early feminists, such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, objected to this approach as too narrow.
When the United States declared war on Germany, Catt believed NAWSA should get its “house” ready. She repudiated suffragists who disagreed with her and that lead to her ejection from the Woman’s Peace Party. During the war, Catt began her work publicly to get women involved in the Red Cross, canteen service, food production, and the like. She also accepted appointment to the Woman’s Committee of the Council of National Defense. Her duties were not easy and she hated war. Anti-suffragists hated Catt.
By 1916, Carrie Catt was convinced that the reversal of her strategy, “The Winning Plan”, was essential. She thought the old plan was negative and wasn’t working fast enough. She also thought the state approach would never work. Catt wanted to redirect attention to the national effort. She worked with both Republicans and Democrats.
By 1920, Catt had achieved her goals in winning votes toward women’s rights with the catch of clashing with other women suffragist and the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified on August 18, 1920 which guaranteed all American women the right to vote. Over all, Carrie Chapman Catt was a very strong-willed woman and wasn’t afraid to fight for what she believed.


I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in womens' rights and how they got them. If you're someone who is not interested in them, I recommend not reading it. The book, in my opinion, was quite boring and hard to get through. Overall, the book was very informational.

[Flan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although repetitious like history books can be, it filled in the gaps of my education about woman's rights in the U.S. and how historically the black male has been pitted against the white female, which is what got me started watching it happen again this election cycle. I heard an essay on NPR which stated, this time, the white woman is handling it much better, during Seneca Falls convention Elizabeth C. Stanton lost it and sounded like an ignorant bigot. Will Hillary take the bait?
Eight years later and there is a movement to overturn the 19th amendment. Hillary is trying again, and not taking the bait against an opponent so heinous he is a caricature.
Still working on human and civil rights for women all over the world. The U.S. is no longer in the vanguard.