She was flawed (who isn't?) but such an amazing, courageous, smart, hard-working hero. I love her and she's a secondary character in the novel I'm writing. :)
"During the American Civil War, Anna Dickinson is the country's most famous female orator — both despised and beloved for her feminist and abolitionist views. When she's committed to an insane asylum against her will, she must learn to subdue her bold, outspoken nature and convince the doctor in charge to write ’sane’ on her discharge papers. But how will she persuade him to release her, when her radical views have already convinced him she’s insane?"
Anna Dickinson was a real person, who really did work with SBA, and she really was committed to an insane asylum. But I've changed the timing of that event so that it coincides with the American Civil War.
That sounds fascinating! I know about Anna Dickinson...she was a sensation in her day! I read one book that suggested she and Susan B. might have been close personal friends ;-)
She was indeed a sensation! And, yes, she and SBA may have been very intimate friends. 😉 I don't explore that possibility in my novel, but I do have Anna falling in love with a woman named Sallie. In reality, she met Sallie much later, and they lived together — with Sallie's husband, George. I suspect that marriages between gay men and lesbian women weren't uncommon as a method of self-protection for queer people. Anna would have been seen by others as the 'spinster friend'.
What's the title/author of the book you're referring to?
Living in the UK, I had never heard of Susan (embarrassing to admit with two history degrees!) but what an incredible woman. Thank you for sharing her story!
To accept a presidential pardon means to acknowledge that one committed a crime. I think SBA would not have wished "being a woman" to be a "crime" remaining part of her legacy, although she did make some decisions (such as sidelining Black women from the fight for suffrage at the time) that I find untenable, even if she believed that men could only handle baby steps. Her optics didn't work anyway. BTW, in 1878, Concord Mass extended the right to vote to women ONLY for the office of school board. Louisa May Alcott was the first woman to register her eligibility and the first to vote in the March elections. Her mother was also a suffragist and didn't live to cast a ballot, although it was her lifelong dream.
She was flawed (who isn't?) but such an amazing, courageous, smart, hard-working hero. I love her and she's a secondary character in the novel I'm writing. :)
I want to know all about a novel that has Susie B as a secondary character!
How to make a writer's day! :)
This is my novel:
"During the American Civil War, Anna Dickinson is the country's most famous female orator — both despised and beloved for her feminist and abolitionist views. When she's committed to an insane asylum against her will, she must learn to subdue her bold, outspoken nature and convince the doctor in charge to write ’sane’ on her discharge papers. But how will she persuade him to release her, when her radical views have already convinced him she’s insane?"
Anna Dickinson was a real person, who really did work with SBA, and she really was committed to an insane asylum. But I've changed the timing of that event so that it coincides with the American Civil War.
https://www.zenaryder.com/
That sounds fascinating! I know about Anna Dickinson...she was a sensation in her day! I read one book that suggested she and Susan B. might have been close personal friends ;-)
She was indeed a sensation! And, yes, she and SBA may have been very intimate friends. 😉 I don't explore that possibility in my novel, but I do have Anna falling in love with a woman named Sallie. In reality, she met Sallie much later, and they lived together — with Sallie's husband, George. I suspect that marriages between gay men and lesbian women weren't uncommon as a method of self-protection for queer people. Anna would have been seen by others as the 'spinster friend'.
What's the title/author of the book you're referring to?
That all sounds fascinating! I will have to dig to find which book it was...stay tuned!
Living in the UK, I had never heard of Susan (embarrassing to admit with two history degrees!) but what an incredible woman. Thank you for sharing her story!
I don't think it's your fault that you don't know about her; history classes often leave out or gloss over the women's rights movement.
They do! That’s why I choose to focus my Substack writing (at least in part) on women, because they are so often left out. Thanks for sharing!
To accept a presidential pardon means to acknowledge that one committed a crime. I think SBA would not have wished "being a woman" to be a "crime" remaining part of her legacy, although she did make some decisions (such as sidelining Black women from the fight for suffrage at the time) that I find untenable, even if she believed that men could only handle baby steps. Her optics didn't work anyway. BTW, in 1878, Concord Mass extended the right to vote to women ONLY for the office of school board. Louisa May Alcott was the first woman to register her eligibility and the first to vote in the March elections. Her mother was also a suffragist and didn't live to cast a ballot, although it was her lifelong dream.
I just finished reading this biography of Susan--it was riveting and amazing and put some of the hard choices Suffs made in context. She did sideline Black women from the movement in the later years, but she was also a great champion for abolition and universal suffrage. https://bookshop.org/p/books/susan-b-anthony-a-biography-kathleen-barry/6725574?ean=9781479804962
I love that fact about voting in Concord! Yea Louisa!
Well written! Just additional proof that had I’d been born back then, I would’ve been shot by the time I was 18, hahaaaa
A lot of us would have been in trouble!
Don't read this comment until you vote in the poll! https://www.npr.org/2020/08/20/904321406/susan-b-anthony-museum-rejects-president-trumps-pardon-of-the-suffragette