This latest novel by Jennifer Chiaverini relates the hardships and violence suffered by the women who fought for the voting rights in the early 1900’s. Some of the characters are modeled on real life activists. Alice Paul was a vocal activist for women’s rights, and organized the March, Maud Malone, who was a NYC librarian, and Ida Wells-Barnett, a journalist and researcher as well as an activist, who also had to battle racism. It is thanks to these brave women that the 19th amendment eventually was passed in 1920, giving women the right to vote. Chiaverini describes in riveting details the 1913 women’s long Suffrage March from NYC to Washington, D.C., in March, just before President Wilson was inaugurated. We truly owe a debt of gratitude to these individuals and others who worked tirelessly to achieve the vote. A great piece of historical fiction.
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