With Courage and Cloth: Winning the Fight for a Woman's Right to Vote

by Ann Bausum

Book Overview

An award-winning author chronicles the story of the women''s suffrage movement in America, using compelling period photographs--including some never before published--to illustrate the vivid narrative.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0792276477
• ISBN13: 9780792276470
• Release Date: September 2004
• Publisher: National Geographic Kids
• Length: 111 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 7.8" x 10.1"
• Age Range: 12 to 17 years
• Grade Range: Grades 7 to 12

Customer Reviews

To do and dare anything

The publications of the National Geographic Society encompass some of the finest non-fiction titles for kids on the planet. Year after year this company churns out remarkable historical, scientific, and cultural tomes that are not only readable, but also lively, informative, and well-researched. "With Courage and With Cloth", one of the very few children's books to delve into women's suffrage in any depth, is no exception. It offers amazing information that everyone should know, and so few do. Unfortunately, it suffers from its format. While the text is brilliant and the pictures sublime, the layout of the book will undoubtedly turn off some readers, while those seeking information about the photographs will be up a tree. A fine fine book that could've used some fine fine tuning. Author Ann Bausum has this to say about American history. Learning about history in school, "I knew all about Washington and Lee, Marshall and Eisenhower. History seemed to be a progression of stories about men and wars and conquest". How much did any of us learn about women getting the vote in school? As I recall, it consisted of one or two sentences in a textbook amounting to something like, "And then in 1920, women were given the right to vote under the 19th Amendment". Goodnight, everybody! The real story behind that teeny little sentence, however, is immense. It's a story that spans more than seventy-two years and was won with literal blood, sweat, and tears. Through this book we meet great heroes like Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Sojourner Truth. We hear about how the suffragists repeatedly split into two different factions and how these factions worked separately to bring about an amendment to the constitution. We see the heroism of the women (dealing with particularly disgusting forced feedings, beatings at the hands of sailors, and rat infested cells) and witness their less than shining moments as well (in regards to their treatment of African-American women). By the time the amendment comes to a vote and has to be ratified by thirty-six states, the book has become an edge-of-your-seat thriller. You may know the ending already, but it's a heckuva ride getting there. Bausum writes in a style befitting of the heroes she's commending. She never shies away from the movement's prejudices and problems, but at the same time it's clear that these women were particularly exceptional. The book even goes so far as to include a section on the Equal Rights Amendment (something I can honestly say I have never before witnessed in a kids' text). On top of that you have profiles of all the major players, a chronology of events, a resource guide, sources and acknowledgements, a bibliography, an index, and a list of books about the suffragists that I spent the better part of last night copying down so that I could read them later. Obviously, I would have liked there to have been some more sections on the African-American women and their ta

Richie's Picks: WITH COURAGE AND CLOTH

Richie's Picks: WITH COURAGE AND CLOTH: WINNING THE FIGHT FOR A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO VOTE by Ann Bausum, National Geographic, September 2004, 112 pages, ISBN: 0-7922-7647-7 "...a discussion of the rights of animals would be regarded with more complacency by many...than would a discussion of the rights of women." --Frederick Douglass speaking about the public's response to the Seneca Falls women's convention of 1848 which he had attended. "Though we adore men individually we agree that as a group they're rather stupid." --"Sister Suffragette" from Walt Disney's Mary Poppins. The part of the story that they left out of the Mary Poppins movie is when Mrs. Banks is abused by a mob of men and young boys and arrested for causing a disturbance even though she and her sisters-in-arms are quietly assembled--holding banners that quote the US Constitution and the current President's own words--and it's the men who are causing all the disturbance. They also left out the part where Mrs. Banks is abusively dragged into a dark prison, thrown in with rats, common criminals, blankets that get laundered once a year, and a bucket for a toilet. Nor do they show prison employees shoving the hose up Mrs. Banks's nose to force feed her when she decides to go on a hunger strike. " 'These women have raised neither hand nor voice,' wrote one female reporter who eventually stood on the picket line herself and was arrested. 'They speak no word and do not attempt to defend themselves if attacked,' she explained." But those omissions and discrepancies could be attributed to the fact that Mary Poppins takes place in jolly, old England, and it was in America during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson that all of these abuses were being endured by the informed women who had resolve to organize and question how the US could be fighting for democracy in Europe while simultaneously denying democratic participation--the Vote--to women at home. Being able to speak freely is what America is all about, right? But students of American history know that there are times when Freedom of Speech seems to be reserved for only SOME Americans, those who agree with the government. "Now, however, the growing nationalism of wartime made such protests seem, as reported in newspapers, 'unwomanly,' 'unpatriotic,' 'dangerous,' 'undesirable,' even 'treasonable.' " (Sound familiar?) The central focus of WITH COURAGE AND CLOTH: WINNING THE FIGHT FOR A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO VOTE is on the years of widespread activism and protest directly preceding the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. And it is during those final years of a fight that began in earnest back in Seneca Falls in 1848 that we so clearly see the parallels between the suffering of those brave Americans involved in the Women's Suffrage Movement and the violence and repression faced by those in the Civil Rights Movement; those images that so many of us watched either on television or firsthand; those images that so many