Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
Created Equal: Women Campaign for the right to vote, 1840-1920
Nonfiction
For ages 10 and up
National Geographic, 2005 ISBN: 978-0792282853
Women in America in the mid 1800's had very few choices as to what they could do with their lives. Most professions were barred to them and only one college admitted women at that time, few women getting any kind of education beyond the age of sixteen. Women could not vote or participate in the political arena, they could not own property, and if they divorced their husbands their children were taken from them.
There were a few select women who decided that enough was enough and that something had to be done to give women more choices, freedoms, and rights. Such women included Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Antony, Lucy Stone, and Carrie Chapman Catt. Many of these women faced great hardship in their fight for the rights of women, being imprisoned, and force fed when they went on hunger strike, and more. They not only had to fight against men who did not want to grant women the right to vote, but they also had to contend with women who thought that a woman?s place was in the home and not in the polling booth.
This well written book packed with photographs, quotes, and excellent descriptions of the principal characters in the American women's suffrage movement is an easy and interesting read. Teachers and parents will find it very useful as a tool to introduce their children and students to the history of the women's rights movement.
