With Courage and Cloth: Winning the Fight for a Woman’s Right to Vote by Ann Bausum (2 BK)

Bausum, Ann. (2004).With Courage and Cloth: Winning the Fight for a Woman’s Right to Vote. National Geographic Society.

Grade Level:
I would recommend this book for students 4th grade –7th grade.

Author Credibility:
Bausum documents her journey and research through this book in two different sections: Sources and Acknowledgments and Biblography. The Sources and Acknowledgments section of the book goes through each chapter and documents her research. She also gives credit to several people that helped with this book in the Acknowledgments. The Bibliography reinforces her research. It also allows you to check out the sources for yourself. This book has won severa awards including:
Jane Addams Children's Book Award2005 Best Book for Older Readers2005 Notable Children's BookBest Books for Young Adults 2005Best Books 20042005 Amelia Bloomer ListNotable Social Studies Trade Book for Young PeopleOrbis Pictus Awards2005 Juvenile Nonfiction Book Award

Summary:
This book begins with the authors experience of meeting Alice Paul one of the crusaders for women’s rights discussed in this book. She explains that this meeting inspired her to write about the time of history Alice Paul helped to shape. This book looks in depth into these years. Chapter one discusses a parade organized by Alice Paul. Women from all over the nation with various credientials marched in the parade. The colors of purple, white, and gold were seen everywhere. As the women marched spectators began to harass them. These spectators were mostly men. These men soon stopped the parade with their harassments. The police did very little to protect the women. The parade did accomplish one goal: media coverage.
Chapter two takes you back in time a bit to the period of 1848 – 1906. This is done to give the reader a little background about how the movement was started. A meeting at Seneca Falls, New York helped to get the movement for women’s rights rolling. It started as a meeting of a group of friends, complaining about not being treated equally with men. They drafted “A Declaration of Rights and Sentiments.” This document was modeled after “The Declaration of Independence,” and listed the concerns they had. Women’s voting rights were almost left out of this document. Many of the soldiers for women’s rights worked for the rights of slaves also. Woman Suffarage organizations were established as the women worked towards equall treatment for women. There were two main organizations (one worked more at a state level and the other at a federal level). For a time these organizations combined, but they would later split again because of their differences. The rest of this chapter chronicles the lives of these early women activists. Bausum does a great job presenting both sides of the argument in this book. She lets you know the reasons men did not want women to vote.
As the book progresses through the years Bausum tells the reader of what is happening in the rest of the world on the same issue. Women of Britain are being arrested and force fed in prision because of their civil disobediance. Some of the activists in the United States would later use these same tactics to get things done in the United States. They would be arrested and then protest further by refusing to eat. This became common, but they were almost always pardoned before their time in prision was through.
The book chronicles the long battle for women’s suffarge. There were many votes for the issue through the years, and slowly states started to come around. The women protested daily for almost a year outside of the white house. Slowly support came around, but it was not easy. Even after the president supported the women there were not enough votes to ratify the constitution. Baurum tells how the women worked to gain support. And finally victory. After a long battle the constitution was ratified.

Standards: Social Studies
*Culture
*Time, Continuity, and Change
*People, Places, and Environments
*Individuals, Groups, and Institutions
*Power, Authority, and Governance

Illustrations:
The illustrations in this book consist of photographs. The photographs are sepia colored. Captions accompany most photographs and tell the reader the story behind the photograph. The photographs allow the visual learner a better understanding of the women discussed by allowing them to see them.

Access Features:
*Table of Contents
*Afterword
*Profiles-includes: Born and Death date, Background information, Contribution to Woman Suffarage, Selected Landmarks, and Quotable Words
*Chronology
*Resource Guide
*Sources and Acknowledgments
*Index
*Maps
*Photographs/ Captions

How I would use the book in the classroom:
This book would be excellent to use in a study about women’s suffarage. It could also be used in a study about suffarage for all people and races in the United States.

My response to the book:
I enjoyed reading this book. I learned a lot about the struggle women faced to gain the right to vote. I often take this right for granted. I mean I exerciece my right to vote, but I don’t think about the sacrifice so many women had to make to assure me this right. These women saw something wrong with the world and they worked throughout generations to change this. The topic in this book is often overlooked in history textbooks.

Related Texts:
The resource guide in this book could prove to be very helpful. It includes books for younger readers, videos, places to visit, and web sites.

Other:
This book is organized by chapters. Each chapter title gives the reader a vague understanding of what the chapter will be about. The writing of the book is very conversational. The end pages of the book are purple and gold, the colors the women adopted during their movement. Many of the banners they made were purple and gold. Famous quotes are highlighted in gold throughout the book.