Join us as we welcome Johnna Neuman in conversation as she discusses her most recent book Gilded Suffragists: The New York Socialites Who Fought for Women’s Right To Vote. To RSVP, call 843-723-9912 or email dreutter@charlestonlibrarysociety.org.
Gilded Suffragists: The New York Socialites Who Fought for Women’s Right To Vote, tells the fascinating story of more than two hundred New York social figures — Astors, Belmonts, Harrimans, Vanderbilts and their circle — who joined the women’s suffrage movement in the 1910s. Chronicled by a vibrant newspaper industry for their extravagant lifestyles, they became the media darlings of their day. And when these glamorous socialites embraced the suffrage campaign, they became the first celebrities to endorse a political cause in the twentieth century. Gilded Suffragists excavates their identities – until now hidden behind the label of Mrs. Somebody Else – and describes their rivalries for power within the suffrage movement, the debate over chivalry that complicated their mission after the sinking of the Titanic and their political conflicts during the First World War.
Johanna Neuman is a writer, historian and scholar in residence at American University in Washington, D.C. An award-winning journalist and former Nieman Fellow at Harvard, she covered the White House, the State Department and Congress for the Los Angeles Times and USA Today.