Kern's enlightening and detailed analysis of Elizabeth Cady Stanton's Woman's Bible fills a void in the historiography surrounding the women's suffrage movement... Persons with a strong interest in American women's religious history will want to add this book to their personal library.
(Journal of Scripture and Theology) In 1895, Elizabeth Cady Stanton shocked the nation by releasing the Women's Bible, a commentary on key biblical passages that challenged the notion of women's subordination in any sphere, particularly the church. Yet this incident has been surprisingly understudied by religion scholars and feminists... Kern's book about the Women's Bible is incisive, well written and long overdue.
(Publishers Weekly) Kathi Kern's new book is more than a study of Elizabeth Cady Stanton's The Woman's Bible. It is the first serious examination of the thought of this towering figure in the history of feminist theory... Kern brings the tools of intellectual history to this complex legacy and fully appreciates the historical contradictions involved... Overall, this book is an impressive achievement.
(American Historical Review) Kern demonstrates that the Woman's Bible itself played a fundamental role in the movement's new conservatism because it sparked Stanton's censure and the elimination of her fellow radicals from the national American Woman Suffrage Association. Mrs. Stanton's Bible dramatically portrays this crucial chapter of women's history and facilitates the understanding of one of the movement's most controversial texts.
(Allegheny Magazine) This tightly written and well-researched book uncovers in all their complexity the regional, national, and international dynamics of the American women's movement, as well as the diversity of beliefs that facilitated those connections but also contributed to discord.
(History)
