I checked this book out of my local library. I was looking for books that would help me gain a better sense of women in the late 1800's and early 1900's. What an awesome book about the early days of women's rights in the U.S.! ( )

With 34 illustrations

The Birth of the Woman's Rights Movement, the book contains 34 illustrations marshaling through the notable American ladies including the Grimke sisters, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cadt Stanton, and many others. As Gurko writes, on July 1848, five women conversed over tea in a small upstate New York town. The next day, the local newspaper carried their announcement inviting women to attend A Convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of women. ( )

Miriam Gurko was inspired to write this when she listened to young feminists commenting that American women had never complained about their lot before the 1960s. Contrary to what I expected from the title, this does not focus solely on the Seneca Falls convention. It follows the ladies who organized it, plus Susan B. Anthony, through the rest of their active and activist lives. The movement split painfully as they disagreed on tactics and priorities, but by the death of the longest-lived Susan B. Anthony, suffrage, originally shocking if not downright blasphemous had become a respectable cause. The modern, late twentieth century movement would pick up with many of the same issues.

A well-written and very informative book that I would recommend to anyone interested in the topic. It deserves to be a classic. ( )

Politics