Abstract
Too often, only a few people are credited in historical accounts for the work and accomplishments of a broad social movement of members who labor over decades to achieve social change. Women’s suffrage in the United States is no exception.
In the 30 years after the passage of a resolution at the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 in upstate New York—“it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise”—many thousands of women and men campaigned for women’s suffrage before the 19th Amendment was introduced into the U.S. Congress in 1878. Then, 42 more years of pushing for the 19th Amendment’s passage was required before U.S. women finally gained the right to vote in federal elections in 1920.
Authors Adams and Keene have made a useful contribution to feminist history in the United States by detailing the attainments after 1920 of many indispensable foot soldiers in the sustained battle to make women full citizens and voters. First, After the Vote was Won reminds us of the picketing that suffragists volunteered for, which resulted, frequently, in jail time and forced feedings. Then, biographical sketches follow, reports on some of the campaigners for suffrage who became artists and collectors, women like Louisine Havemeyer, Rhoda Kellogg, and Betsy Reyneau.
The book also features suffragists who became influential educators and scholars, among them, Mary Agnes Chase, Alma Lutz, and Helen Keller. While, of course, Keller’s fame is international in scope, Chase and Lutz both merit the attention that the authors bring to their careers since their names would only be recognized by specialists in the history of women’s suffrage or in their particular fields of study.
Next, women suffragists who became writers are chronicled. Alice M. Gram Robinson, Louise Bryant, Helena Hill Weed, Beatrice Kinkead, and Martha Foley constitute the honor role in this realm.
A final portion of the book records the sustained activism after 1920 of selected suffragists. Because of the public nature of their work for social justice, some of their names are better known than earlier subjects. Such luminaries as Jeanette Rankin, Mary Church Terrell, and Dorothy Day are featured. Less famous, but nonetheless, significant women in this category of sustained activists after suffrage include Anne Martin, Sue Shelton White, and Hazel Hunkins-Hallinan. Excellent pictures of some of the women dot the text. Those images help enliven the narratives.
A problem with the book is the absence of content that reveals uncertainty, ambivalence, or self-doubt during the post-suffrage careers of these suffragist heroes. Therefore, the book’s subjects come across as larger than life. In fact, they deserve our continuing admiration for the very reason that they were mere mortals who faced down internal fears in order “to keep on keeping on.”