- “Highly entertaining and gravely important, this is a wonderfully written history about wealthy New York women who mobilized for women’s suffrage. Neuman (American Univ.) traces the evolution of their unlikely rise to positions of leadership, and how they skillfully used their social class, sense of style, and celebrity to political advantage, challenging the popular idea that suffragettes were not feminine and underscoring the importance of appearances. The author allows her subjects to emerge as deeply individual and variously motivated, and demonstrates how each used her social relations—strengthened by marriage or merger, often both—to mobilize others. She demonstrates how the fight for the right to vote intersected with national and global events, including the sinking of the Titanic. The study also points to how these “gilded suffragettes” enlarged their tent to make room for women of all classes, creating a movement that could no longer be ignored. Particularly in light of recent political events and a nagging fear that common citizens—even those among the 1 percent—don’t make much of an impact on policy, this volume underscores the power of grassroots actions and details the relentless efforts required to make lasting change. … Highly recommended.” —Choice Magazine, American Library Association
- “Gilded Suffragists is a brilliant—and beautifully written—study of the campaign for women’s right to vote [that] deftly illuminates 'the upstairs long missing from women's history,’ recovering for the ages the contribution of elite society women to the movement. Suffrage was a team sport, a collective effort by women of all classes, but Neuman shows that the gilded suffragists’ contributions came at a critical moment to push Votes for Women over the finish line. Their money (and their ability to extract contributions from others) was crucial; but perhaps most importantly, they leveraged their social power to make suffrage a popular, mainstream cause. That they have been lost to history is no accident. Despite having championed a winning cause, these doyennes of New York society lost in the internecine battle over the movement's legacy in the years that followed as labor groups and middle class activists questioned their motives and excised their efforts from the historical record. In her own time, Alva Belmont lamented that suffrage leaders had “forgotten who is responsible for this victory. But I don't care. I shall go down in history.” One hundred years later, thanks to Neuman, the legions of gilded suffragists who worked for the cause have finally had their say.” — Susan Perlman, Professor, National Intelligence University
- “A new generation of women of wealth and standing stepped up in 1908, most notably Alva Vanderbilt Belmont and Katherine Duer Mackay. Belmont, who was domineering, audacious, and independently wealthy, used the newfound celebrity journalism to manipulate the press for the movement. Mackay used her femininity and famous fashion sense to approach the elite and influence the influential. She taught women to take a ladylike, maternal purview to the public square, eschewing the violent methods seen in Britain at the time. Where Mackay offered a coy wink, Belmont employed a cold bribe, but they each succeeded in pulling the movement out of the doldrums. Though mockery continued, Belmont, Mackay, and others made fruitful use of their considerable contacts, making New York the center of activity and encouraging cross-class coalition. Neuman concisely explains how these gilded women have been airbrushed out of history, resented by those who felt exploited, but thankfully, they succeeded, and women vote today because of them.” – Kirkus Review
- “After the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention inaugurated the women’s suffrage crusade, the movement soon languished until the turn of the century when wealthy Gilded Age women adopted it and sent the cause’s popularity soaring. Neuman (Lights, Camera, War) chronicles the engagement of New York elites in the movement from the 1890s until the 20th Amendment’s passage, pointing out that these influential women’s names (such as Alva Vanderbilt Belmont and Florence Jaffray Harriman) were written out of the histories by some of the movements’ founding mothers because of resentment, even though their work greatly influenced the passage of New York’s bill in 1917, and the national amendment in 1920. These wealthy and notable women used their style, status, and influence to make suffrage activism prestigious, fashionable, acceptable, and less threatening to men. During this revolutionary period, they espoused suffrage, as well as other progressive issues, defying tradition and etiquette; often alienating themselves from members of their own class and families. … This slim, flowing account of women, whose financial contributions, celebrity, style, and innovative strategies revitalized a cause and changed history, will be welcomed by all readers.” —The Library Review