Feminism and Suffrage

Ellen Carol DuBois is Professor of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her most recent books are Woman Suffrage and Women's Rights and Harriot Stanton Blatch and the Winning of Woman Suffrage.

The women's suffrage movement is commonly viewed in one of two ways: as completely synonymous with nineteenth-century feminism, or as a corruption, a dilution of it. DuBois shows that neither analysis is accurate but that both political paths converged into a social movement that affected American history at least as much as the black liberation and labor movements—whose support it failed to win.... DuBois has given us a work of scholarly insight written in an animated style; she is generous in her portraits of and quotes from the foremothers. For feminists today, this book is a critical reminder that alliances are best made from a position of independently acquired strength.- Robin Morgan (Ms. Magazine) This thoughtful and highly readable analysis is a valuable contribution to both the history of feminism and the history of nineteenth-century America.(Kirkus Reviews)