Women Will Vote

Goodier and Pastorello’s key intervention is their ability to connect suffrage activism in New York City to community efforts across the state, demonstrating that suffrage activism was not exclusive to the city. By placing New York State at the center of their work, Goodier and Pastorello are able to flesh out the movement’s nuance, widening their scope to encompass a breadth of suffrage activists and organizations, like the Jamestown Political Equality Club (1887), one of the many political coalitions for women in upstate New York.

~The Gotham Center for NYC History Blog

(Starred Review) In 1917, a referendum granting women in New York State full suffrage finally passed, an accomplishment activists had been working toward since the mid-19th century. Goodier and Pastorello explore the people and events that made this milestone possible. The authors primarily focus on the many who contributed to the cause of suffrage, including well-known figures such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton while also introducing readers to Max Eastman, Carrie Chapman Catt, and other equally important but lesser-known suffragists.... Goodier and Pastorello offer a thorough perspective of the long struggle for voting equality in New York—and the first step toward equal rights. VERDICT Highly recommended to those interested in women's history as well as the history of New York State. The work is particularly timely with the centennial of the successful referendum in November 2017.

~Library Journal

This stellar book narrates the history of women's suffrage in New York State. Goodier and Pastorello present new information on the seven-decade struggle that culminated in the passing of the New York State referendum granting women—except Native American women—full suffrage.

~Choice

Susan Goodier and Karen Pastorello's Women Will Vote is an important book for anyone interested in the history of New York, gender, or social movements more broadly. In this meticulously researched and engagingly written monograph, Goodier and Pastorello set out to explain how women in New York worked from the 1840s to the 1910s to convince male voters and legislators to support woman suffrage, finally succeeding with a popular referendum in 1917. By adopting a statewide frame, the authors are able to trace out the loosely organized networks that connected New York City to rural towns and villages, while bringing elite women into conversation with factory workers and farmers. Indeed, a major contribution of this book is to demonstrate that a mass movement can be built from fluid and shifting coalitions and that a common goal can unite those who agree on little else.

~New York History

The book makes good use of letters and personal papers in general—and I found especially useful the papers and oral history of Mary Elizabeth Pidgeon, who volunteered with the National American Woman Suffrage Association after graduating from college, was invited to speak at a conference, attended a brief training session, and eventually became a paid organizer, working first in Buffalo and later in Auburn. In Buffalo she worked with labor groups in Polish and Italian neighborhoods and attended Parent-Teacher Association and union meetings.

~American Historical Review