Alva Vanderbilt Belmont : Unlikely Champion of Women''s Rights
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Item type | Current location | Call number | URL | Status | Date due | Barcode |
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Electronic Book | UT Tyler Online Online | HQ1413 .B44 H64 2012 (Browse shelf) | http://uttyler.eblib.com/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=670315 | Available | EBL670315 |
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HQ1413.A33 S674 2015 A Sister's Memories : | HQ1413.A55 S873 2012 Susan B. Anthony and the Struggle for Equal Rights. | HQ1413.B4 c1973 Catharine Beecher | HQ1413 .B44 H64 2012 Alva Vanderbilt Belmont : | HQ1413.B44 H64 2012 Alva Vanderbilt Belmont : | HQ1413.B74 | HQ1413.B74A3 2009eb Madeline McDowell Breckinridge and the Battle for a New South. | HQ1413.B74 A3 2009 Madeline McDowell Breckinridge and the battle for a new South / |
CONTENTS; ACKNOWLEDGMENTS; INTRODUCTION; 1. An Impossible Child; 2. Every Inch a General; 3. A Sex Battle; 4. Immortalizing the Lady in Affecting Prose; 5. Belmont's Orphan Child; 6. The Last Word; Postscript: My Turn; APPENDIX Belmont's Financial Contributions to Woman's Rights; NOTES; BIBLIOGRAPHY; INDEX
A New York socialite and feminist, Alva Vanderbilt Belmont was known to be domineering, temperamental, and opinionated. Her 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 world wide equal rights campaign. 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. Her analysis of Belmont's memoirs illustrates how Belmont went about the complex and collaborative process of creating her public self.
Description based upon print version of record.
Reviews provided by Syndetics
CHOICE Review
In this nuanced biography, Hoffert (emer., Texas A&M) argues persuasively that wealthy philanthropist Alva Vanderbilt Belmont's contributions to the women's rights movement were as "noteworthy" as those of Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Carrie Chapman Catt, and Alice Paul. Belmont not only gave thousands of dollars to women's suffrage campaigns and related initiatives, but also purchased buildings and furniture for them, paid their property taxes and insurance, and subsidized and sheltered several radical activists in the US and abroad from 1909 until her death in 1933. A demanding, often tyrannical New York-Newport socialite, Belmont carefully cultivated her own celebrity status in the US press, then manipulated it throughout her life to support political causes that would benefit all women. Hoffert's refined understanding of how a biographer's subjectivity shapes the narrative of someone else's life strengthens her engaging look at Belmont's place in history. In addition, her expert handling of the autobiographical source material reveals how intricately woven good biography can be. Since Belmont left no papers, the three memoirs that she dictated became crucial to understanding the legacy she attempted to build. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. M. A. McEuen Transylvania UniversityAuthor notes provided by Syndetics
Sylvia D. Hoffert is Emerita Professor of History at Texas A&M University and author of A History of Gender in America and Jane Grey Swisshem: An Unconventional Life.
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