The Woman’s Hour

Bea’s Books

Beatrice Cosgrove, reviewer

4 out of 5 stars

The Woman’s Hour by Elaine Weiss is about how women got the right to vote over many years. Not all women got the right to vote at first. African-American women were suppressed from voting along with other people of color by Jim Crow laws. With the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, African-Americans were finally able to vote freely.

This book gives a lot of information and details on how women got the right to vote. The story is told from both perspectives, the anti-suffragists and the suffragists, which makes it easier to know how both sides felt during the epic battle for voting rights for women. Even though I knew the outcome, the story kept me on the edge of my seat wondering what would happen next and how women would achieve this essential right. It gave me a lot of information on suffrage. It all takes place in Tennessee, with the National Woman’s Party and National American Woman Suffrage Association fighting to pass the 19th Amendment and the antis putting many obstacles in their path. I recommend it to ages 10+.

Beatrice Cosgrove, 10, is a reader and writer in St. Paul.