Reviews
The Agitators: Three Friends Who Fought for Abolition and Women's Rights by Dorothy Wickenden
elsiebrady's review
4.0
Hard to believe we are still dealing with these issues 170 years later!! We’ve made progress but not enough for that amount of time to pass! So grateful for those who engaged in the fight when they did, they probably would have despaired at the SLOW progress.
zena_ryder's review
4.0
Harriet Tubman is amazing. I love reading about the incredible things she did. This book is worth reading just to learn more about her. But in this great book, we get to read about two other interesting women, as well.
I was particularly taken with Frances Seward. For a woman who was probably fairly quiet and retiring by nature she led a life very close to the big public issues of her time — abolition of slavery and suffrage for Black people and women. Being married to such a prominent public figure can't have been easy for her. Her husband was William Henry Seward. He was, among other political positions, Lincoln's Secretary of State. She never hesitated to let him know what she thought and she was no doubt an influence on his views. She was an abolitionist and thought that freedom for the enslaved people of the South was more important than preservation of the Union. She thought that the South should have been allowed to secede from the Union, and that it wouldn't have survived as an independent country, and slavery would have ended sooner.
Was she ultimately disappointed in her husband's political compromises? It's certainly tempting to read her that way.
Looking more into the Sewards led me to the Seward Family Digital Archive, where you can read their letters to one another, as well as to and from many other people: https://sewardproject.org/
I was particularly taken with Frances Seward. For a woman who was probably fairly quiet and retiring by nature she led a life very close to the big public issues of her time — abolition of slavery and suffrage for Black people and women. Being married to such a prominent public figure can't have been easy for her. Her husband was William Henry Seward. He was, among other political positions, Lincoln's Secretary of State. She never hesitated to let him know what she thought and she was no doubt an influence on his views. She was an abolitionist and thought that freedom for the enslaved people of the South was more important than preservation of the Union. She thought that the South should have been allowed to secede from the Union, and that it wouldn't have survived as an independent country, and slavery would have ended sooner.
Was she ultimately disappointed in her husband's political compromises? It's certainly tempting to read her that way.
Looking more into the Sewards led me to the Seward Family Digital Archive, where you can read their letters to one another, as well as to and from many other people: https://sewardproject.org/
excellent_taste's review
4.0
More journalists should write history books, this was incredibly well researched and written in a way that was academic but not so densely so that it was particularly hard to get through. And of course, the subject matter is very important.
soulkissed2003's review
2.0
Here we have a very knowledgeable author who has done her research extensively. The book has its interesting moments but is very academic, and felt like a non-fiction title I would use as a source when writing a college research paper.
The most interesting parts involved Harriet Tubman, her personal history, and reasons WHY her vital role in combating slavery played out the way it did. As for the other women, they certainly did their part towards women's rights and abolition in a world that did not really want to consider those topics, for the most part. However, I felt that for the modern reader looking for a general overview of how these people lived and how events transpired to help end slavery and gain women the right to vote, this got bogged down in little details that are not of much interest now, some hundred and forty years later.
I wanted to like this one so much more than I did. I forged on through it until I found myself skimming every page rather than actually reading it. I would love to see this author tackle a shorter book with a main focus on Harriet Tubman. Her writing style is solid but she seemed most passionate about sharing about that particular woman, as compared to the other two she chose to discuss here.
The most interesting parts involved Harriet Tubman, her personal history, and reasons WHY her vital role in combating slavery played out the way it did. As for the other women, they certainly did their part towards women's rights and abolition in a world that did not really want to consider those topics, for the most part. However, I felt that for the modern reader looking for a general overview of how these people lived and how events transpired to help end slavery and gain women the right to vote, this got bogged down in little details that are not of much interest now, some hundred and forty years later.
I wanted to like this one so much more than I did. I forged on through it until I found myself skimming every page rather than actually reading it. I would love to see this author tackle a shorter book with a main focus on Harriet Tubman. Her writing style is solid but she seemed most passionate about sharing about that particular woman, as compared to the other two she chose to discuss here.