A lesson learned from ELIZABETH CADY STANTON: A REVOLUTIONARY LIFE, by Ellen Dubois

 Oppressed people finding common ground is crucial for organizing mass movements.

    One thing I love doing any time I see new History books that catch my eye is to try and fill some of my historical "blind spots"; as hard as I try to know everything for the sake of my students, there are huge gaps in my knowledge of many key people and events, and to that end I greatly enjoyed learning more about Elizabeth Cady Stanton from Ellen Dubois' new biography of the famous suffragette. While I know very well the broad history of the Women's Suffrage Movement and its leaders (and I've read some excellent Alice Paul books in recent years), I knew shockingly little details of the lives of the most famous 19th century feminist leaders Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Dubois brings Elizabeth (as she calls her throughout the book) back to life in vibrant and vivid detail, and in the process she relays the cautionary lesson that it is still incredibly difficult for people to learn--that mass movements that are trying to change the world, have to rely on a broad coalition of people from all backgrounds that can unite around a common goal of trying to implement a necessary change. All too many of failed social movements collapsed into divisions and petty feuds, and for much of Elizabeth's life the Women's Suffrage Movement was no exception.

    To me, one of the saddest and most memorable details that Dubois recounts in Elizabeth's life, were the constant daily slights and struggles she had to deal with on a daily basis as she tried to be an outspoken female leader in a society that very much was not used to such a sight. Elizabeth's own father acknowledged how brilliant and radiant of a person she was, yet could not stop making comments to her about how he wished she had been born a son so she could actually succeed in life. While Elizabeth loved her eventual husband Henry, one reason why she emphasized that she wanted people to call her "Cady Stanton" was to emphasize her identity was not buried by her marriage; anti-feminist newspapers throughout her life would simply call her "Mrs. Henry Stanton." Some of her daily struggles were relatable to women who struggle to find comfortable clothing to this day; Elizabeth found the clothing of her era incredibly confining to her movement (she loved trying to walk and hike), and would often make her own unique clothing to try and break free from it. In spite of the obstacles thrown at 19th century women, Elizabeth dedicated her life to the passage of a Women's Suffrage Amendment into the Constitution, a struggle she sadly would not live to see succeed (one trivia I never thought about; for a long time the Women's Suffrage Movement was fighting for a 16th Amendment, which shows how long delayed their cause eventually became!).

    What the Women's Suffrage Movement desperately needed was to unite American women of all races, behind a working-class idealism that the voices of millions of American women should no longer be silenced; it proved incredibly difficult to organize this mass movement, as for decades many suffrage groups consisted of wealthy white women who looked down on women of less fortunate backgrounds. Elizabeth herself believed that the Women's Suffrage Movement had to become a broader struggle against a patriarchal society that sustained itself through oppressing lower groups; she saw a direct connection between the spectacularly awful racial violence of the 19th century, and the same oppression that women faced on a daily basis from men. A committed abolitionist and later integrationist, she watched with great frustration as the Women's Suffrage Movement repeatedly splintered into different groups who could not focus on the same goals. On her own end, Elizabeth herself could at times fuel these divisions, as her essays against organized religion offended more conservative women, and she also felt nothing but contempt for millions of immigrants whom she felt aided in the oppression of women. One reason why it took a long time after her death in 1904 for her to be properly acknowledged, was because women's rights organizations adopted her fellow suffragette (and bestie) Susan as their icon--a woman who was every bit as radical, but also much more diplomatic and soft-spoken, whereas Elizabeth could not resist venting her opinions far and wide.

    In many ways, Dubois successfully paints Elizabeth Cady Stanton as an icon who speaks very much to our own era; her arguments that gender relations and the proper role of religion in society (of which she argued there should be an absolute division between church and state) were the main issues in America that would have to eventually be resolved, may have been downplayed in her own era but still very much resonate with audiences today, who are now fighting out these same issues in social media of all places. In Elizabeth's era, she never saw the success of a mass movement that could unite American women around broad progressive societal change, and as a result she did not live to see the passage of the eventual 19th Amendment. In our own age, we have seen many attempted mass movements that identified areas of society that are in need of drastic change, yet they have all too often collapsed into personal squabbles and petty divisions that prevent them from ever building the grand organization that is needed for a long, drawn-out struggle. In that sense, the life and lessons of Elizabeth Cady Stanton are very much worth revisiting today.