Category: Books

Here are several portrayals of women, four who are historical, that is real people, and one from a novel adapted for a television series.

BIOGRAPHY—OVERDUE RECOGNITION

The Agitators: Three Friends who Fought for Abolition and Women’s Rights by Dorothy Wickenden

One of the satisfactions of the times we’re living in is seeing women whose achievements have been overlooked getting the recognition they deserve.  One example is the New York Times’ ongoing publication of lost obituaries.  Obituaries of individuals, mainly women, whose accomplishments went unnoticed and largely unrecorded.

Dorothy Wickenden is the executive editor of The New Yorker and author of Nothing Daunted:  The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West.  In The Agitators, Wickenden details the unlikely friendship and the overlooked successes of three women, two white and one Black.  They all lived in Auburn, N.Y., an upstate town between Syracuse and Rochester. Auburn was more notable in the 19^th century than in subsequent years.  The women are Harriet Tubman, Frances Seward (wife of William Henry), and Martha Coffin Wright.  They had a warm friendship and supported each other while working separately and together to abolish slavery and gain women the right to vote.

Most readers will know of Harriet Tubman’s work as a leader in the Underground Railroad and as a cook, nurse, and scout for the Union Army.  They might not know that Frances Seward sold Tubman a house and that Tubman moved her parents from Canada to this Auburn property.  Auburn was an appropriate way station between Maryland and Canada.  Later on, Tubman turned her house into a home for the aged. When she stopped traveling, Harriet spent her remaining years in Auburn until her death in 1913.

Frances Miller Seward grew up in Auburn, a well-educated daughter of a judge.  When married, she and Henry (as W. H. was known) moved in with her widowed father. Frances had strongly held views on the need to end slavery and also on women’s rights, but she was active mostly under the radar.  Although she chafed at having to moderate her views publicly and not be as visible as she would have liked, she did it out of deference for Henry’s positions. He served as governor of New York State, U.S. senator, and ultimately, President Lincoln’s Secretary of State.  Quietly, Frances helped fugitive slaves by lending their stately home as a stop on the railroad.  She also participated in a number of the women’s rights conventions and several anti-slavery societies. Her views about how to combat slavery were stronger than Henry’s.  She was a real hero whose many deeds were only fully acknowledged after her death and not even then by some powerful men.

Martha Wright, sister of the better-known activist Lucretia Mott, liked questioning institutions and upsetting the status quo.  She grew up in Philadelphia and moved to Cayuga County to be a teacher. There she met David, her future husband and a lawyer. An activist and a feminist at heart, Martha was one of the organizers of the first Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls in 1848. With Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, she played a leadership role in future conventions, and regularly spoke, wrote, and gathered petition signatures on behalf of women’s suffrage and abolition. Like Frances, she too occasionally contended with objections from her husband.  These three women were each outstanding, and together they advanced these causes. Their gravesites are in Fort Hill Cemetery which was established in 1851.

This book has personal appeal for me.  I spent most of my childhood until college in Auburn, attended Seward Elementary School, and have visited Harriet Tubman’s home.  When Alaska, Seward’s Folly, became a state in 1959, Auburn celebrated in a big way.  My father served on one of the organizing committees, and I spent an afternoon hawking statehood souvenir programs in front of the Grand Union supermarket.  My mother was a volunteer at the Seward House Museum in her later years and is buried in Fort Hill Cemetery.  The cemetery is as lovely as Wickenden states. 

Personal connections aside, this is a superb book! It’s chock full of fascinating history: of the early women’s rights movement, the passing of the Married Women’s Property Act, the Underground Railroad, and the battles of the Civil War, all presented with a female perspective.  Highly recommended! (~JWFarrington)

ON THE SMALL SCREEN

NORWAY AND THE U.S.

Atlantic Crossing (PBS Masterpiece)

Early in the Second World War, Norway was attacked and occupied by the Nazis. The royal family split up and left the country for their safety.  Crown Prince Olav and his father, King Haakon VII, joined the prime minister and his cabinet in London. Princess Martha and their children attempted to find refuge in Sweden (her birthplace and where her uncle reigned), but that became difficult and then politically untenable.  She eventually made a safe crossing to the United States and lived first in the White House and then at a large estate nearby.  

This 8-part series focuses on Princess Martha: her relationship with President Roosevelt and her attempts to gain recognition of Norway’s plight and get aid for the country.  In the process, she becomes less reserved and a strong woman of consequence.

It’s a compelling piece of world history I was not aware of and makes for very dramatic viewing.  Once again, Masterpiece comes through with a high-quality production that will have you anxiously anticipating what happens next.

TRUE LOVE OR NOT

The One (Netflix)

This 8-part Netflix original series is about another powerful woman, this time a fictitious one who seems totally without morals.  Rebecca Webb and scientist James Whiting develop a DNA match process that purports to match a person with his or her one true love, a love that happens instantaneously.  They market it and call the company, The One.  

How did now CEO Rebecca prove that the matches work?  A body turns up in the river, a married couple get into difficulty when one of them signs up for The One, and a female detective gets matched, but then has questions about the results.  These subplots all play into a larger sci-fi crime story revolving around the ambitious and ruthless Rebecca.  Based on a novel by James Marrs, it’s fast moving, fascinating and grabs you from the start!

Note: Header photo is of Crown Prince Olav and Princess Martha of Norway in Washington, D.C. in 1939, courtesy of Library of Congress/Wikimedia Commons.