Product Description

In a quiet town of Seneca Falls, New York, over the course of two days in July, 1848, a small group of women and men, led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, held a convention that would launch the woman's rights movement and change the course of history. The implications of that remarkable convention would be felt around the world and indeed are still being felt today.

In Seneca Falls and the Origins of the Woman's Rights Movement, the latest contribution to Oxford's acclaimed Pivotal Moments in American History series, Sally McMillen unpacks, for the first time, the full significance of that revolutionary convention and the enormous changes it produced. The book covers 50 years of women's activism, from 1840-1890, focusing on four extraordinary figures--Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, and Susan B. Anthony. McMillen tells the stories of their lives, how they came to take up the cause of women's rights, the astonishing advances they made during their lifetimes, and the lasting and transformative effects of the work they did. At the convention they asserted full equality with men, argued for greater legal rights, greater professional and education opportunities, and the right to vote--ideas considered wildly radical at the time. Indeed, looking back at the convention two years later, Anthony called it "the grandest and greatest reform of all time--and destined to be thus regarded by the future historian." In this lively and warmly written study, Sally McMillen may well be the future historian Anthony was hoping to find.

A vibrant portrait of a major turning point in American women's history, and in human history, this book is essential reading for anyone wishing to fully understand the origins of the woman's rights movement.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #414406 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780195182651
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. McMillen, who chairs the history department at Davidson College, presents a fine history of the 1848 Seneca Falls convention, which galvanized the women's movement through the remainder of the 19th century and also affected concurrent struggles for temperance, abolition and educational reform. Narrowing her focus to four suffragists—Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone—McMillen nimbly weaves their stories with the larger narrative of reform. After a splendid introductory chapter that outlines the legal injustices most women suffered (typically, they could not vote, hold property or receive equal pay for their work), McMillen describes the convention itself, about which we know relatively little (Stanton gave it just two sentences in her mammoth memoir) and then traces its unexpectedly weighty impact on reformers through the decades. She does an outstanding job of discussing how religion functioned as both an impetus and an obstacle to reform, and pays particular attention to how the women's movement broke apart during Reconstruction because of internal bickering, racism and class divisions. This is not a revisionist work or a substantial challenge to the conventional historiography of suffrage, but a well-written and cogent synthesis accessible to the general reader while remaining firmly grounded in primary sources. 20 b&w illus. (Feb.)
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Review

"McMillen tells the story of the woman's rights movement quite well, and her book adds to our understanding of the woman's rights movement."--Sherry H. Penney, The Journal of American History
"McMillen...presents a fine history of the 1848 Seneca Falls convention...a well-written and cogent synthesis accessible to the general reader while remaining firmly grounded in primary sources."--Publishers Weekly
"McMillen clearly articulates 50 years of critical women's political activism.... If for no other reason, that discussion of the relationship between race and gender struggles makes this work particularly timely in the 2008 election season."--Bust
"Sally McMillen weaves together compelling biographies of colorful leaders with an engaging analysis of the broader reform movements that transformed the texture and trajectory of American society. It is an extraordinary story of ideals and energies that continue to shape American life. In short, McMillen offers a learned and lucid overview of a movement that still moves us."--David Emory Shi, President of Furman University; author of Facing Facts: Realism in American Thought and Culture, 1850-1900
"Tracing the developments that led up to and away from the Woman's Rights Convention of 1848, the volume makes a major contribution to women's history and to American history."--Nancy A. Hewitt, Rutgers University
"This book provides a compulsively readable history of nineteenth-century American feminism--its origins, struggles, achievements, and legacies. I know of no more insightful account of the birth and evolution of the movement to overcome gender inequality."--Steven Mintz, John and Rebecca Moores Professor of History, University of Houston
"Sally McMillen offers the most complete discussion yet of the origins and the impact of this event that started the American women's movement and would change the world."--Marjorie Julian Spruill, Professor of History, The University of South Carolina; author of ew Women of the New South
"McMillen deftly demonstrates how ordinary women transformed their lives and America's future by rejecting the pedestal to join the rough and tumble of nineteenth century reform politics. Her achievement is to make this transformation accessible yet complex, commonplace yet extraordinary."--Catherine Clinton, Queen's University-Belfast

About the Author

Sally McMillen is the Mary Reynolds Babcock Professor of History and Department Chair at Davidson College. She is the author of Motherhood in the Old South and Southern Women: Black and White in the Old South. She lives in Davidson, North Carolina.

Customer Reviews

Excellent - a must-read
This is a wonderful book. Although I studied feminist history in college and have been familiar with the names and deeds of the four women featured in "Seneca Falls..." for years, it wasn't until reading this book that these women became human to me. The author does a stunning job of bringing them and their individual and collective struggles to life in a wonderfully engaging, accessible way. What an extraordinary story of patience and deep-seated belief in the possibility of change - a timely, inspiring message I'm very glad to have stumbled upon.

Truly inspiring book
This is a book that anyone with an interest in women's rights should read. It is just one more example of what a great historical author McMillen is. It is particularly timely in light of the current presidential election. McMillen's use of primary sources and her meticulous research gives the reader a stong understanding of the struggle that women went through to get the right to vote.

The Wonderful Women at Seneca Falls
I have contradictory feelings about this book. Having visited Seneca Falls two years ago I was thrilled to have this detailed history of how that momentous convention came to be and what came after. It's all I would want such a book to be, EXCEPT...and this is a biggie for me....I couldn't keep the main cast of characters straight because of the ubiquitous use of first names. I kept having to look back to remind myself that "Lucy" is Lucy Stone who was.... and "Lucretia" is Lucretia Mott who was...etc.

In books where the main characters are men the problem is easily resolved by the use of surnames. I can appreciate why, in a book with this theme, you would want to avoid that practice since it would give a ascribed identity to the women who were married.

The use of first names only may not be a problem for other readers, but I would have appreciated an album, so to speak, at the beginning with a photo and brief bio that I could easily turn to keep the cast of characters straight in my mind.

Lu Ann W. Darling, author of Discover Your Mentoring Mosaic, A Guide to Enhanced Mentoring