The genesis of this book was a Radcliffe conference in the spring of 2015 called “The University as Collector.” As the interim faculty director of the Schlesinger Library, I was asked to speak for ten minutes about a specific document or artifact in our collections. When I surveyed the Schlesinger staff for their favorites, Maryléne Altieri, the curator of books and printed material, drew my attention to the Susan B. Anthony inscription in the fourth volume of the History of Woman Suffrage that would later supply the inspiration for my epilogue. That artifact struck a chord as a possible theme for a book, but it took a while to find the right balance between material culture and biography. At a brown-bag lunch with Schlesinger staff to gather suggestions of objects and people to include, Ellen Shea playfully suggested I aim for nineteen chapters in honor of the Nineteenth Amendment. As I tracked down manuscripts and followed leads, the wonderful reference staff, especially Sarah Hutcheon, guided my way. Diana Carey gets a special shout-out for her help securing images of all of the objects. The fingerprints of the Schlesinger Library are on practically every page of this book.
I have been mining the collections of the Schlesinger Library for more than four decades, and I offer this book as a heartfelt “thank you” for an institutional affiliation that has enriched my entire professional life. Not only did the library’s holdings shape my scholarship and teaching, but the time I spent there offered myriad opportunities for friendship and collegiality. As a member of the library’s advisory board in the 1980s and 1990s and the Schlesinger Library Council since 2011, and now as the Honorary Women’s Suffrage Centennial Historian, I have also become a member of the larger Radcliffe community. My tenure spanned transition from Radcliffe College to the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, where I had the chance to work with two fellow historians, Drew Gilpin Faust and Lizabeth Cohen, during their tenures as dean. Being part of the Radcliffe family, in combination with my involvement with the American Repertory Theater, in turn gave me access to the intellectual and scholarly resources of Harvard University, which I gratefully acknowledge.
I also want to acknowledge a hearty band of co-conspirators involved in commemorating the suffrage centennial. In tribute to Alice Paul’s silent sentinels who picketed the White House starting in 1917, I call this group the Not-So-Silent Sentinels, because we not only refuse to stay silent, we speak as loudly as we can. Jane Kamensky, who came on board as the faculty director at the Schlesinger Library in 2015 just as the planning for the library’s seventy-fifth anniversary and the suffrage centennial ramped up, has enthusiastically embraced the library’s exploration of what we are calling “the long Nineteenth Amendment.” Working with the historians Corinne Field, Lisa Tetrault, and Allison Lange on various suffrage-related projects at the library has been a real treat, as has been collaborating with my dear friend and Schlesinger colleague Kathy Jacob, who has been monitoring the centennial planning on the local, state, and national levels. And what fun to acknowledge not just scholars but also a range of artists and filmmakers who are bringing the suffrage story to modern audiences through music, film, and theater, including Sammi Cannold, Shaina Taub, Rachel Sussman, and Gene Tempest. If we ever convened a gathering of the Not-So-Silent Sentinels, nearly all of us could sport the bright pink pussy hats hand-knit by me while I worked on this project—my designated therapy for dealing with the current political climate, which has made my work as a feminist historian even more necessary.
I also have a wider network of cherished friends (many of whom have hand-knit pussy hats of their own) to thank for their support and encouragement. Joyce Antler and I have been each other’s first readers since the 1980s. I can’t imagine writing a book without her, and I know she feels the same way. That also goes for the friendships I have forged with Carla Kaplan, Carol Oja, Carol Bundy, and Kathleen Dalton over our shared writing projects. Thanks as well to Katherine Marino, who graduated (literally) from an undergraduate biography class I taught at Harvard to becoming a fine historian in her own right. Collaborating on a suffrage web exhibit with Lola Van Wagenen and Melanie Gustafson at Clio Visualizing History gave the three of us the chance to continue the strong connections we first formed at New York University in the 1980s. The book has also been enriched by conversations about history, writing, and so much more with Claire Bond Potter, another NYU connection. Joyce Seltzer and I have known each other for decades, and finally (just in time!) got to do a book together. I couldn’t possibly have written this book without Rob Heinrich’s steady presence as the research editor at American National Biography. And on the home front, Don Ware, a master himself when it comes to working hard and being successful, has helped provide an environment where I can pursue my passion for history and biography.
This book is dedicated to Anne Firor Scott, who, like so much else that is good, came into my life through the Schlesinger Library. The dedication honors our long friendship, Anne’s pioneering role in the field of women’s history, and her place in suffrage history. The math doesn’t quite work out, but I fancy the idea that she was conceived on the very night in August 1920 that the Nineteenth Amendment formally became part of the US Constitution.