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NY Daily News Book Review: Fight like a woman: the ladies who risked it all to get women the vote

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Book Review Originally Published in New York Daily News – Click here for original article

The Awakening, a 1915 illustration shows a torch-bearing woman wearing a cape that says "Votes for Women", symbolizing the awakening of the nation's women to the desire for suffrage. Below the cartoon is a poem by Alice Duer Miller. Contributor: Henry Mayer Date: 1915-02-20 (Library of Congress)
The Awakening, a 1915 illustration shows a torch-bearing woman wearing a cape that says “Votes for Women”, symbolizing the awakening of the nation’s women to the desire for suffrage. Below the cartoon is a poem by Alice Duer Miller. Contributor: Henry Mayer Date: 1915-02-20 (Library of Congress)

It’s perhaps the most basic right of all: The right to be heard.

For thousands of years, women weren’t. No one in power listened to them. They had little control over their bodies, their finances, their lives.

But a few women realized if they won one right — the right to vote — all else might follow.

“Suffrage: Women’s Long Battle for the Vote” by Ellen Carol Dubois chronicles that struggle, which peaked 100 years ago with the ratification of the 19th Amendment. The book notes that the larger fight, for full equality, goes on.

"Suffrage: Women's Long Battle For The Vote" by Ellen Carol Dubois (Simon & Schuster)
“Suffrage: Women’s Long Battle For The Vote” by Ellen Carol Dubois (Simon & Schuster)

The women’s war was long and intense. It would grow to include picket lines, hunger strikes, and physical violence. But it began quietly in Seneca Falls, N.Y., on a hot summer Sunday in 1848, when Elizabeth Cady Stanton met friends for tea.

The Stantons had recently moved from Boston, and the mother of three found small-town life left her with a “mental hunger.” In her old home, she was a vital part of the abolitionist movement. Here, she was buried under domestic drudgery.

“Cleanliness, order, the love of the beautiful and artistic, all faded away in the struggle to accomplish what was absolutely necessary from hour to hour,” she complained.

Talking to the other women, she unleashed “the torrent of my long-accumulating discontent with such vehemence and indignation that I stirred myself, as well as the rest of the party, to do and dare anything.” The friends decided to hold a two-day public meeting on “the social, civil, and religious conditions and rights of women.”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized the world's first women's rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. She was the first President of National Women's Suffrage Association, an office she held from 1869 to 1890.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized the world’s first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. She was the first President of National Women’s Suffrage Association, an office she held from 1869 to 1890. (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

The Founding Fathers had begun America’s war for independence by publishing a list of grievances. These women would do the same for their gender.

Titled “Declaration of Sentiments,” their broadside began with familiar but significantly altered language. “We hold these truths to be self-evident,” it read. “That all men and women are created equal.” And it ended with a groundbreaking resolution: “That it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise.”

The fight for the vote had begun.

It would take more than 70 years, and give rise to many leaders and controversies.

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