In 1919, the US Federal government passed the 19th amendment to the US Constitution, granting women the right to vote across the nation. As many of you will know, though, it wasn't quite that simple. In order for the amendment to take effect in the US, it needed to be ratified by at least 36 states.
Some states rushed to be the first to ratify, ablaze with excitement at the prospect of being at the forefront of progress. Others took their time and required some persuasion. Some states refused point blank to countenance it. Finally, 35 states had ratified. One more was needed - Tennessee. WWI was over and the political landscape was becoming more conservative; if Tennessee failed to come through, it seemed likely that such an opportunity would not come again.
In the summer of 1920, the fight for ratification - and for the future of nationwide women's suffrage in the US - came to Nashville, Tennessee. This book is the story of that fight. It tells of the decades of political campaigning that had led up to this moment, by famous names such as Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton. It tells of the grinding years of door-knocking, local meetings, marches and petitions, as the suffragists attempted to reach potential supporters in a pre-radio era. It details the times when the suffragists felt as though they were ridiculed by society and fobbed off and ignored. But they didn't give up. Tiny step by tiny step, they changed the political landscape, until by 1920 they were working to present female suffrage as inevitable, and resistant states as an embarrassment to America on a world stage that was changing rapidly in the wake of the war.
The truth is that in Nashville in 1920, ratification felt far from inevitable. In fact, suffrage campaigners felt at some points that their fight might be almost hopeless. Yes, their efforts to gather local support and to lobby local legislators in Tennessee were impressive - they were well-connected and committed and organised. But then, so were the "Antis" - the women who actively campaigned against female suffrage. And, really, there were an astonishingly large number of them - larger, almost, than our modern minds can quite comprehend. Yes, the suffragists officially had the support of the President, Woodrow Wilson, and presidential candidates of both parties, but politics was a precarious sport, and the support given by politicians wasn't always as robust as it might first appear. They had to contend with local vested interests - such as railways and liquor companies - who opposed female suffrage, and with the egos and re-election plans of local officials. They had to fight the opposition of those incensed by a perceived affront to Tennessee's "state's rights" - that is, the question of whether the federal government should be able to dictate how individual states should conduct their affairs. They had to negotiate their way through racist attacks that opening the door to female voters would also enfranchise black women - considered to be a controversial concept in the American South in that era.
The book doesn't pretend that they were unblemished heroines. It's quite open about the compromises that were made by the American suffragists to push forward female suffrage into the light - sometimes at the expense of their friends campaigning for civil rights for black Americans in a post-slavery nation. It's frank about the divisions within the suffrage movement between the more moderate campaigners and those who favoured more militant tactics. It doesn't shy away from describing the big personalities involved. It's honest about what it cost the often-pacifist suffragists to swing their support behind the WWI effort. The suffragists were human, rather than divine. But it never loses sight of what these women did for the cause of female enfranchisement and democracy, sometimes at significant personal cost.
It's important that we're upfront with our 9-2-3 Book Club; this isn't necessarily a book that grabs you from the first page. In all honesty, it's too complex a subject, and there are too many individuals discussed along the way, to be one we'd pack in our suitcases for some light holiday reading. But for a fairly detailed historical account of a major political turning point, it's surprisingly accessible; it feels like a human story, rather than an academic volume, and once we had pushed through the first few chapters, we were hooked! It's a book that might light a fire inside you and give you a new appreciation of the journey which women in the US have taken towards political freedom. It's an inspiring story of the importance of holding fast to what you know is the right thing to do, even when the world around you laughs. It's a useful reminder that the path to equality isn't self-evident to everyone; and that change requires us to be brave enough to put our heads above the parapet. History shows that, if we do, others will follow.