Born Criminal: Matilda Joslyn Gage, Radical Suffragist

This is SUCH an important book about a key figure who was written out of women's history. Gage was born in 1826 to parents who were active abolitionists, their home an underground railroad stop when she was growing up, as was her home after she married. She became involved in the women's suffrage movement in 1852.

Gage was considered more radical than Susan B. Anthony or Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who she knew extremely through their joint work for the National Woman Suffrage Association. Gage was very well educated, and particularly interested in shining a light on forgotten women in history and women's inventions. Anthony and Stanton, who out-lived Gage, are the key people responsible for writing her out of history. Both took credit for show more Gage's writings and research at various times before and after her death, Anthony most egregiously. Gage's writing was often praised, and her book Woman, Church, and State garnered a personal letter from Tolstoy with the back handed compliment "It proved a woman could think logically."

Gage was other L. Frank Baum's mother-in-law, and it's thought that she greatly inspired how he wrote women and girls, particularly in the Oz books and the books written under his Edith van Dyne pseudonym. Given that Baum had only sons, I think this is probably quite true.

Highly recommend this book, or at least doing a good Wikipedia dive. show less

Living just a few miles from Fayetteville I have visited the Gage home many times and worked with Sally Roesch Wagner on a conference. That said, I would have thought I was informed on everything Gage. I was wrong. Carpenter brings out facts about Gage's early life and her family life that was new to me. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and learning about her children and their spouses. I was amazed as her amount of travels, both in working for the cause and in visiting her family who moved to the Dakotas and Chicago. Ms. Wagner impressed on us all that Gage was written out of suffrage history by Stanton and Anthony but I didn't realize how perverse it was until reading this book. It makes me rethink my admiration for both.
This show more book had a bibliography, footnotes, and an index as well as abundant photos which really enhance the story. I highly recommend this book for students and adults. show less

I was glad to win an uncorrected proof of Born Criminal: Matilda Joslyn Gage, Radical Suffragist by Angelica Shirley Carpenter through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program because I hadn't heard of her. Susan B. Anthony has a chapter in my girlhood copy of Great American Heroines by Arnold Dolin, and of course I've heard of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, but Ms. Gage, who was just as big a mover in the Women's Suffragist Movement as they were? No. She was pretty much written out of the movement's history. Just yesterday I learned that movie Star Hedy Lamarr had a brilliant technological mind that came up with frequency hopping (the eventual basis for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth), during World War II. She'd even patented it in 1942, but the show more knowledge of her role isn't widely known today. I'm used to men hiding women's achievements in what's been considered 'men's work' since ancient times, but how could Ms. Anthony and Ms. Stanton do that to one of their own? I had to read through much of the book before I learned the reason for their falling out. Luckily, that was no hardship.

This biography is meant for young adults, who have less tolerance for scholarly dullness than adults, so it's very readable. Matilda Joslyn Gage was an excellent writer and speaker. She wanted to be a doctor, but could not gain admittance to medical school. What medicine lost, political activism won. Ms. Gage didn't just fight for women's right to vote. She was a historian and scholar of the movement. She was also pretty scathing about the role Christianity took (after its earliest period), in oppressing women, as well as no longer acknowledging the feminine elements, as well as the masculine, of divinity. (See chapter 21). Ms. Gage knew Greek and Hebrew, so she wasn't dependent on others' translations of Holy Writ. Her book, Woman, Church, and State, included information about anthropological and historical discoveries, societies in which women had greater rights and roles than allowed in her day, the witch-hunting period, and how Christian churches and our government failed to protect women even as they claimed they were our protectors. (I was horrified to learn that in the early 1890s Delaware's legal age for feminine consent to have sex was SEVEN years old!)

The Joslyn family home was a stop on the Underground Railroad. Matilda was trusted to keep that secret a little girl. show less

This title was both an interesting and informative read. I suppose like most women of a certain age, I take my "women's rights" for granted and have never pondered "who" did the work of getting them for us, other than in the most general way. It is mind blowing to me all the work that this woman put in over the course of her lifetime. And then, in essence, she was written out of history because of another person's ego. This book provides insight into an otherwise unknown history. I feel Ms. Gage would have been a very interesting person to talk with, and very strong willed and opinionated. The author brings not only her "women's rights" side of the story, but also her personal side of the story. The book details not only how hard she show more worked for our freedoms and rights, but also the trials she faced in her family life as well. The information about the professor who actually worked hard to restore Ms. Gage's rightful place in history is also an interesting part of the book. It leads the reader to ponder not only how unfair this is because it was done by women to another woman, but also the question if this person has been overlooked from history, who else who has contributed significantly has been swept aside? Throughout, this book definitely stretches the thoughts and beliefs of the reader. show less

Reviewing the uncorrected proof -
An interesting history read with good narrative flow once it gets going, but before it gets going it seems to struggle with its audience a bit. As this is a book about a suffragist who is not generally a household name, I would think that a basic knowledge of US history could be assumed of anyone who would pick this one up, and yet the book goes to the trouble of explaining what the Boston Tea Party was, and what the Fugitive Slave Act was. The book doesn't spend a lot of time on such exposition, but it did kinda startle me out of the narrative whenever it appeared. However, once the book gets underway, it describes the historical events in a way that emphasizes the practicalities without being tedious. show more It makes these events feel more immediate and recent than most history books. It also establishes and describes the sort of daily grind of Gage’s activism, the work that has to be done even though it’s unlikely to be recognized or remembered very broadly. There is also a wealth of photographs included, much more than I expected from a book like this, and they enhanced my enjoyment and connection with the material substantially.

It's not the kind of book I would recommend to someone who wasn’t already interested in the suffrage movement or women’s history, but for those interested parties, it’s an engaging and satisfying read. show less

Although the finished book is available for sale, this review is based on an uncorrected page proof provided to me by the publisher. The finished version is not yet available in either the university or public library near me nor in the nearby Barnes & Noble store.

The South Dakota Historical Society Press, which published Born Criminal, considers it a YA book although it was not listed as such by LibraryThing, and LC has cataloged it without juvenile literature as a subtopic. The most YA parts of the book to me were the first few chapters in which certain terms such as abolitionist (p. 15) were defined, and the last chapter giving a history of women's rights movements to the present day (which most adults would know having lived through show more the later part of the twentieth century). Also, activities which teenagers might enjoy doing are described at the end of the book; one is even suggested as a class project.

Although the subtitle calls Gage a radical suffragist, I think a better description might have been radical reformer since Gage was interested in more reforms than just suffrage. While growing up her family’s home had been a stop on the Underground Railroad. She was also interested in Native American rights, religion, and witchcraft. She felt that religion was a big factor in causing women to be viewed as inferior beings to men, and was opposed to including Frances Willard's Woman's Christian Temperance Union within the suffrage movement.

Ms. Carpenter describes the tensions among various leaders in the woman's suffrage movement. Originally Gage closely worked with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton; they were a group of three. They worked in the same branch of the suffrage movement, and edited the first three volumes of the History of Woman Suffrage. However, they had their differences, and both Stanton and Anthony survived Gage. Ms. Carpenter shows how even during her lifetime, Stanton and Anthony wrote Gage out of women’s history, not giving her credit for work she did.

This biography discusses Gage's whole life, including her family, in addition to her reform work. Gage’s daughter, Maud, married L. Frank Baum, the author of the Oz books. Ms. Carpenter thinks that Matilda Joslyn Gage influenced her son-in-law’s writing.

Includes numerous pictures, bibliographical references, and annotated bibliography. Unfortunately, this version lacks an index. show less

Well researched and well written book about the early days of the women's suffrage movement. Read about the good, the bad, and the ugly - even when fighting for something so important, egos play into rewriting history.