Feminism and Suffrage

In the two decades since Feminism and Suffrage was first published, the increased presence of women in politics and the gender gap in voting patterns have focused renewed attention on an issue generally perceived as nineteenth-century. For this new edition, Ellen Carol DuBois addresses the changing context for the history of woman suffrage at the millennium.

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., This thoughtful and highly readable analysis is a valuable contribution to both the history of feminism and the history of nineteenth-century America.

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.