Gilded suffragists : the New York socialites who fought for women's right to vote / Johanna Neuman

Author: Neuman, Johanna
Published: New York : Washington Mews Books, and imprint of New York University Press, 2017.
Copyright Date: ©2017
�2017
Physical Description: 201 pages, 29 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Availability

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Series

Washington mews books

Contents

A club of their own -- The celebrity endorsement -- The birth of a rivalry -- A rivalry collapses -- The gilded face of modernity -- Mere men -- The tactical turn -- The great wars -- Who won suffrage?

Summary

New York City's elite women who turned a feminist cause into a fashionable revolution 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. In the end, as Neuman says, when change was in the air, these women helped push women's suffrage over the finish line.

Subject(s)

Metropolitan Museum of Art
1900-1999
Women—Suffrage—United States—History
Suffragists—New York (State)—New York—Biography
Suffragists—New York (State)—New York—History—20th century
Socialites—New York (State)—New York—Biography
Elite (Social sciences)—New York (State)—New York—History—20th century
HISTORY—United States—State & Local—Middle Atlantic (DC, DE, MD, NJ, NY, PA)
HISTORY—Women
Elite (Social sciences)
Socialites
Suffragists
Women—Suffrage
Frauenbewegung
Frauenwahlrecht
Suffragette
Women—Suffrage—New York (State)—History
United States
New York (N.Y.)—History—20th century
New York (N.Y.)—Biography
New York (State)
New York (State)—New York

Genre(s)

ISBN

9781479837069 (hardcover alkaline paper)
1479837067 (hardcover alkaline paper)

Bibliography Note

Includes bibliographical references and index.

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