WITH COURAGE AND CLOTH

Bausum’s lucid and nuanced study focuses on 1913–20, the last years of the more than seven decades when women in the US fought for the right to vote. She summarizes what went before and she teases out, remarkably clearly, how hard it was. Women suffered horribly—attacked by mobs, imprisoned with trumped-up charges under filthy conditions, painfully force-fed, and called all manner of evil names—to gain the right to vote. Two separate groups of suffragists (who often had differing plans and means and did not work together) and deep planning by both kept the battle for enfranchisement going. Bausum focuses on Alice Paul and some other lesser-known lights of the movement, and all the while she makes the history live as she explains, exhorts, and lets nothing drop by the wayside. The entire volume is put together wonderfully, using some never-before-published photos and a lively layout. Bausum also gives a gift to young researchers by noting, chapter by chapter, what sources she used in her research and how she used them. Excellent. (profiles, chronology, resource guide, sources and acknowledgments, bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 10+)