HOW WOMEN WON THE VOTE

Highlights of the women’s suffrage movement in the U.S. in the second decade of the 20th century.

When young Americans Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, both white college graduates, met in London in June 1909, they formed a connection that would energize the next 11 years of activism for women’s suffrage in the United States. This very compact account encapsulates much of the information in stellar works for somewhat older readers such as Ann Bausum’s Of Courage and Cloth(2004) and Winifred Conkling’s Votes for Women(2018). Bartoletti recounts the women’s experiences in England during 1909, ending with the hunger strike and forced feeding at Holloway prison from which it would take Paul a month to recover. She details the organization of the 1913 parade in Washington for women’s suffrage on the eve of President Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration, taking care to bring attention to the struggle of black women such as Ida B. Wells to be recognized and included. The author also describes Paul’s continued protests and founding of the National Women’s Party as suffragists’ efforts met with ongoing resistance. Sidebars, captions, and the inclusion of photos and newspaper clippings add informative visual interest along with Chen’s clear, unaffected illustrations. Text and pictures convey the conflict and struggle without sensationalism. The inclusion of a photograph of the January 2017 Women’s March acknowledges that there is more work to be done.

A well-documented, highly condensed introduction with substantial visual appeal.