In 1899, Carrie Chapman Catt, who succeeded Susan B. Anthony as head of the National American Women Suffrage Association, argued that it was the "duty" of U.S. women to help lift the inhabitants of its new island possessions up from "barbarism" to "civilization," a project that would presumably demonstrate the capacity of U.S. women for full citizenship and political rights. Catt, like many suffragists in her day, was well-versed in the language of empire, and infused the cause of suffrage with imperialist zeal in public debate. Unlike their predecessors, who were working for votes for women within the context of slavery and abolition, the next generation of suffragists argued their case against the backdrop of the U.S. expansionism into Indian and Mormon territory at home as well as overseas in the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii. In this book, Allison L. Sneider carefully examines these simultaneous political movements--woman suffrage and American imperialism--as inextricably intertwined phenomena, instructively complicating the histories of both.
ReviewsSneider has written an innovative study of the intersections of suffrage and expansionism. * The Nation *
This is one of the rare books that will fundamentally change the operating assumptions of scholars working in two fields: women's history and imperial history. * Anne Firor Scott, Duke University *
Suffragists in an Imperial Age offers an illuminating analysis of how suffrage ideologies were reshaped in the second half of the nineteenth century to reflect larger concerns over citizenship and nation-building. Allison Sneider has written a marvelous book, one that will surely rank among our best studies of U.S. suffragism in the postbellum period. * Louise Newman, author of White Women's Rights *
AwardsWinner of A ^ICHOICE^R Outstanding Academic Title.
Book InformationISBN 9780195321173
Author Allison L. SneiderFormat Paperback
Page Count 224
Imprint Oxford University Press IncPublisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 313g
Dimensions(mm) 156mm * 234mm * 12mm