Alva That Vanderbilt Belmont Woman

The biography of Alva Vanderbilt Belmont.

The biography of Alva Vanderbilt Belmont.

A fascinating biography of the New York socialite who played a surprising role in the fight for suffrage. Born in the middle of the nineteenth century, Alva Vanderbilt Belmont was known to be domineering, temperamental, and opinionated. She married two millionaires, and pressured her daughter to wed an aristocrat. This resolve to get her own way regardless of the consequences stood her in good stead when she joined the American woman suffrage movement in 1909. Thereafter, she used her wealth, her administrative expertise, and her social celebrity to help convince Congress to pass the 19th Amendment and then to persuade the exhausted leaders of the National Woman’s Party to initiate a worldwide equal rights campaign. In this book, Sylvia D. Hoffert argues that Belmont was a feminist visionary and that her financial support was crucial to the success of the suffrage and equal rights movements. She also shows how Belmont’s activism, and the money she used to support it, enriches our understanding of the personal dynamics of the American woman’s rights movement. Drawing upon and analyzing Belmont’s own memoirs, she illustrates how this determined woman went about the complex and collaborative process of creating her public self. “Engaging . . . Highly recommended.” —Choice

The riveting novel of iron-willed Alva Vanderbilt and her illustrious family as they rule Gilded-Age New York, written by Therese Anne Fowler, a New York Times bestselling author of Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald. Alva Smith, her southern family destitute after the Civil War, married into one of America’s great Gilded Age dynasties: the newly wealthy but socially shunned Vanderbilts. Ignored by New York’s old-money circles and determined to win respect, she designed and built nine mansions, hosted grand balls, and arranged for her daughter to marry a duke. But Alva also defied convention for women of her time, asserting power within her marriage and becoming a leader in the women's suffrage movement. With a nod to Jane Austen and Edith Wharton, in A Well-Behaved Woman Therese Anne Fowler paints a glittering world of enormous wealth contrasted against desperate poverty, of social ambition and social scorn, of friendship and betrayal, and an unforgettable story of a remarkable woman. Meet Alva Smith Vanderbilt Belmont, living proof that history is made by those who know the rules—and how to break them.

The story of how and why a group of prominent and influential men in New York City and beyond came together to help women gain the right to vote. Finalist for the 2018 Sally and Morris Lasky Prize presented by the Center for Political History at Lebanon Valley College The Suffragents is the untold story of how some of New York’s most powerful men formed the Men’s League for Woman Suffrage, which grew between 1909 and 1917 from 150 founding members into a force of thousands across thirty-five states. Brooke Kroeger explores the formation of the League and the men who instigated it to involve themselves with the suffrage campaign, what they did at the behest of the movement’s female leadership, and why. She details the National American Woman Suffrage Association’s strategic decision to accept their organized help and then to deploy these influential new allies as suffrage foot soldiers, a role they accepted with uncommon grace. Led by such luminaries as Oswald Garrison Villard, John Dewey, Max Eastman, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, and George Foster Peabody, members of the League worked the streets, the stage, the press, and the legislative and executive branches of government. In the process, they helped convince waffling politicians, a dismissive public, and a largely hostile press to support the women’s demand. Together, they swayed the course of history. Brooke Kroeger is Professor at the New York University Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. Her books include Nellie Bly: Daredevil, Reporter, Feminist and Fannie: The Talent for Success of Writer Fannie Hurst.

A comprehensive encyclopedia tracing the history of the women's rights movement in the United States from the American Revolution to the present day. Few realize that the origin of the discussion on women's rights emerged out of the anti-slavery movement of the 19th century, and that suffragists were active in the peace and labor movements long after the right to vote was granted. Thus began the confluence of activism in our country, where the rights of women both followed—and led—the social and political discourse in America. Through 4 volumes and more than 800 entries, editor Tiffany K. Wayne, with advising editor Lois Banner, examine the issues, people, and events of women's activism, from the early period of American history to the present time. This comprehensive reference not only traces the historical evolution of the movement, but also covers current issues affecting women, such as reproductive freedom, political participation, pay equity, violence against women, and gay civil rights.

When Consuelo Vanderbilt's grandfather died, he was the richest man in America. Her father soon started to spend the family fortune, enthusiastically supported by Consuelo's mother, Alva, who was determined to take the family to the top of New York society—forcing a heartbroken Consuelo into a marriage she did not want with the underfunded Duke of Marlborough. But the story of Consuelo and Alva is more than a tale of enterprising social ambition, Gilded Age glamour, and the emptiness of wealth. It is a fascinating account of two extraordinary women who struggled to break free from the world into which they were born—a world of materialistic concerns and shallow elitism in which females were voiceless and powerless—and of their lifelong dedication to noble and dangerous causes and the battle for women's rights.

The first comprehensive guide to women activists from every part of the world, illuminating the broad range of women's struggles to reform society from the 18th century to the present. Despite being marginalized, disenfranchised, impoverished, and oppressed, women have always stepped forward in disproportionate numbers to lead movements for social change. This two-volume encyclopedia documents the visions, struggles, and lives of women who have changed the world. This encyclopedia celebrates the lives and achievements of nearly 300 women from around the globe—women who have bravely insisted that the way things are is not the way they have to be. Nadeshda Krupskaya, the wife of Lenin, spearheaded the drive against illiteracy in post-revolutionary Russia. American Dorothy Day founded the Catholic worker movement. Begum Rokeya Hossain organized a girls' school in Calcutta in 1911. Rachel Carson launched the modern environmental movement with her book Silent Spring. The stories of these women and the hundreds of others collected here will restore missing pages to our history and inspire a new generation of women to change the world.