Gilded Suffragists, Johanna Neuman
Gilded Suffragists, Johanna Neuman
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Gilded Suffragists
The New York Socialites who Fought for Women's Right to Vote

Author: Johanna Neuman

Narrator: C.S.E. Cooney

Unabridged: 6 hr 59 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 09/05/2017

Synopsis

In the early twentieth century over two hundred of New York's most glamorous socialites joined the suffrage movement. Their names—Astor, Belmont, Rockefeller, Tiffany, Vanderbilt, Whitney, and the like—carried enormous public value. These women were the media darlings of their day because of the extravagance of their costume balls and the opulence of the French couture clothes, and they leveraged their social celebrity for political power, turning women's right to vote into a fashionable cause.

Although they were dismissed by critics as bored socialites "trying on suffrage as they might the latest couture designs from Paris," these gilded suffragists were at the epicenter of the great reforms known collectively as the Progressive Era. From championing education for women, to pursuing careers, and advocating for the end of marriage, these women were engaged with the swirl of change that swept through the streets of New York City.

Johanna Neuman restores these women to their rightful place in the story of women's suffrage. Understanding the need for popular approval for any social change, these socialites used their wealth, power, social connections and style to excite mainstream interest and to diffuse resistance to the cause.

About Johanna Neuman

Johanna Neuman is a writer, historian, and scholar in residence at American University in Washington, D.C. An award-winning journalist and former Nieman Fellow at Harvard, she covered the White House, the State Department, and Congress for the Los Angeles Times and USA Today.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Nichole on August 25, 2017

I need to be honest... this book is not generally something that I would read. I tend to find that a lot of history/non-fiction type books can get a bit tedious and boring. That said, this was not the case with Gilded Suffragists. I found the detail to be incredibly fascinating. I am sure Johanna Ne......more

Goodreads review by Nancy on August 20, 2017

Subtitled, The New York Socialites Who Fought for Women's Right to Vote, Johanna Neuman's book credits the forgotten women of the upper class who joined the movement for suffrage. Just as today the media loves wealth and beauty, a hundred years ago the media loved the elite denizens of New York, help......more

Goodreads review by Mandy on April 02, 2018

There’s been much emphasis in the UK this year (2018) about the fight for women’s suffrage, so this excellent book is a timely reminder that American women too were fighting for the right to vote. Here the author concentrates on the richest and most privileged women in New York, of whom many espouse......more

Goodreads review by Lisa of Hopewell on July 08, 2023

How perfect that today, when yet another famous women, this time Oprah Winfrey, is being mooted as a presidential possibility, today I am reviewing a book about the birth of suffrage for American women. Back in the Gilded Age and the Edwardian Era, women became aware of a failing on the part of most......more

Goodreads review by Matthew on December 15, 2017

There's a lot of interesting information in this book. And it's a look at people who are often ignored in the hindsight of the Women's Suffrage movement. That said, reading the book was like trying to follow a particularly excited Robin Williams, ad libbing jokes and leaping about a stage. Several t......more

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