Suffrage and Its Limits: The New York Story ed. by Kathleen M. Dowley et al. (review)

Those of us who encounter undergraduates skeptical of the value of studying history would do well to introduce them to a volume like Suffrage and Its Limits: The New York Story, edited by Kathleen M. Dowley, Susan Ingalls Lewis, and Meg Devlin O'Sullivan. This collection of essays positions suffrage history alongside current considerations of women's activism and feminist politics. It evolved from a 2017 conference held at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and SUNY New Paltz on Women in Politics: Past, Present, and Future, in which scholars, students, politicians, policymakers, and activists came together to consider the centennial of women achieving suffrage in New York State. The editors make clear their commitment to retell a story we think we know and the reasons why. In the introduction they explain their intention to "move beyond celebrating, to commemorating and complicating this history while connecting narratives of the past, present, and future of New York State" (2). The retelling takes us in new directions, casting its net more broadly to ask not only how suffrage was achieved and why it mattered, but also to consider the tenacity and mistakes of activists, evaluate the legacy and implications of the movement, and imagine the future potential of women's political participation.

The book is divided into three sections: investigating the past, interrogating the present, and imagining the future. The editors facilitate a dynamic subversion of temporal, intellectual, and political boundaries by placing the chapters in conversation with one another. So, Barbara Smith's claim that "racism and class oppression undermined the organizing and weakened the movement" in her chapter, "Why Way Forward?: Freedom Organizing in the Twenty-First Century," is well grounded in the history and historiography presented in the first section (146). Similarly, Susan Lewis's reconsideration of Carrie Chapman Catt's role in the 1917 suffrage victory in New York concludes with the exhortation that "it is vital that feminists analyze the successful tactics and strategies of the past to see if that can prove useful in addressing the limits of suffrage today" (44). In the penultimate chapter, "Making Freedom Moves: The Abolitionist Praxis of Black Women's Liberation," Jasmine Syedullah and Gabrielle Baron-Hill examine the particular vision of justice embodied by black women. They argue that contemporary activists need to be in conversation with activists from the past to assimilate their wisdom and "imagine what freedom might look like to future generations of black women" (141). They weave past, present, and future together powerfully when they write: "How we wield our power now can ensure we pass on the kinds of strength needed to survive the erasures, violence, and suspicion of national belonging to come. What we are learning is that freedom is not a right but a steady practice of collective movement, and it is once again time to get in formation" (141, 142). In essence, this quote captures the spirit of the entire volume, as its authors take inspiration from the past and recognize their own place in the struggle in the ongoing movement for justice.

In addition to zooming out to explore the legacies and implications of women's political activism, this volume also succeeds in zooming in, to examine New York more specifically. New York was home to some of the most famous suffrage figures, organizations, and events. This history is set up well in the first two chapters, and then expanded to include state activism after the vote in chapter 3. Focusing on the state, the authors offer both new stories and new perspectives on familiar ones. We are reminded of both the "great promise" of "the cross-cultural, cross-class, cross-race alliances" of suffrage activists in chapter 1, as well as "the gap between the promise of equality… and the very real, and at time deadly practices of discrimination" in chapter...