ROMANCING THE VOTE

As the nineteenth century progressed into the twentieth novels about politically active women became increasingly common Until now however no one has studied this body of writing as a distinct tradition in American literature In Romancing the Vote Leslie Petty recovers this tradition and also examines how the fiction written about the women39s rights and related movements contributed to the creation and continued vitality of those movementsPetty examines the novels as paradigms of feminist activism and reform communities and elucidates how they whether wittingly or not model ways to create similar communities in the real world She demonstrates how the narratives provide insight into the hopes and anxieties surrounding some of the most important political movements in American history and how they encapsulate the movements39 paradoxical blend of progressive and conservative ideologiesThe major works discussed are Elizabeth Boynton Harbert39s Out of Her Sphere 1871 Lillie Devereux Blake39s Fettered for Life 1874 Henry James39s The Bostonians 1886 Frances Ellen Watkins Harper39s Iola Leroy 1892 Hamlin Garland39s A Spoil of Office 1892 Marjorie Shuler39s For RentOne Pedestal 1917 Elizabeth Jordan39s edited volume The Sturdy Oak 1917 and Oreola Williams Haskell39s Banner Bearers Tales of the Suffrage Campaigns 1920Although these works discredit many traditional notions about gender and inspire their readers to seek fairness and equality for many American women they often simultaneously perpetuate discriminatory ideas about other marginalized groups They not only privilege the experiences of white women but also rely on widespread anxieties about racial and ethnic minorities to demonstrate the need for gender reform By focusing on such tensions between conventional and unconventional ideas about gender race and class Petty shows how the fiction of this period helps to situate firstwave feminism within a larger historical and cultural context