In the early years of women's history research, Matilda Joslyn Gage was buried in superlatives. She was deemed "the most logical, scientific and fearless writer of her day, and one of the best-known writers of the day." She's admired for being "one of the most scholarly of them all," and "one of the most effective and forceful woman's rights lecturers," and "one of the most important of all nineteenth-century feminist historians." Even Gage's newspaper was judged to be "a major suffrage journal."
However, once the bouquets were thrown, Gage dropped into the background of scholarship on the suffrage movement. It's time to see why she really was called "the most," "the best," "effective," and "scholarly."
From her first convention speech in 1852 to the publication of her magnum opus, Woman, Church and State, her speeches, writings, and advocacy were and remain an education in women's history. Gage's greatest contribution to the women's movement rests on her scholarship, based on careful research, well documented and written in the best scholarly manner. Today we can assess her as an historian, a pioneering scholar of women's history and the world history movement.
Her work as an advocate, activist, intellectual, and leader is now also being acknowledged in larger ways. And, because her story is so closely woven into the history of the National Woman Suffrage Association, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony, Gage's story also bears weighty insights into their stories, too.
However, once the bouquets were thrown, Gage dropped into the background of scholarship on the suffrage movement. It's time to see why she really was called "the most," "the best," "effective," and "scholarly."
From her first convention speech in 1852 to the publication of her magnum opus, Woman, Church and State, her speeches, writings, and advocacy were and remain an education in women's history. Gage's greatest contribution to the women's movement rests on her scholarship, based on careful research, well documented and written in the best scholarly manner. Today we can assess her as an historian, a pioneering scholar of women's history and the world history movement.
Her work as an advocate, activist, intellectual, and leader is now also being acknowledged in larger ways. And, because her story is so closely woven into the history of the National Woman Suffrage Association, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony, Gage's story also bears weighty insights into their stories, too.