Susan B. Anthony by Teri Kanefield (review)

When the name Susan B. Anthony resonates with middle-school readers, it’s generally in connection with women’s suffrage and collectible U.S. dollar coins. Here Kanefield presents the entire package of her activism over a remarkably lengthy career, from temperance to voting rights to abolition to child labor, with particular attention to the indefatigable zeal with which Anthony conducted her crusades, often to the annoyance of her allies and possible detriment of her causes. The fracture among progressives over prioritizing voting rights for black men or all women after the Civil War is clearly explained, as are the legal and political ploys wielded by Anthony’s foes to keep women pure, innocent, and domesticated. Readers will be caught between amusement and outrage over the disparaging barbs heedlessly thrown by Anthony’s male acquaintances and relations that goaded her into action (a cousin’s husband lectured his dying wife, “Mine is the real headache, genuine pain, yours is sort of a natural consequence”). Photographs and period illustrations embellish the text, and notes, a timeline, a bibliography, and an index are included, as well as excerpts from three of Anthony’s addresses.