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The agitators : three friends who fought for abolition and women's rights / Dorothy Wickenden.
Chronicles the revolutionary activities of Harriet Tubman, Frances Seward, and Martha Wright--friends and neighbors in Auburn, New York--discussing their vital roles in the Underground Railroad, abolition, and the early women's rights movement.
Record details
- ISBN: 9781476760735 (hardcover)
- Physical Description: xiv, 384 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
- Edition: First Scribner hardcover edition.
- Publisher: New York : Scribner, 2021.
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| Genre: | Biographies. |
Available copies
- 1 of 1 copy available at Tsuga Consortium.
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- 0 current holds with 1 total copy.
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| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cookstown Branch | 974.76803 Wic | 31681010229854 | NONFIC | Available | - |
- Baker & Taylor
The best-selling author of Nothing Daunted chronicles the revolutionary activities of Harriet Tubman, Frances Seward and Martha Wright, discussing their vital role in the Underground Railroad, abolition and the early womenâs rights movement. 100,000 first printing. - Baker & Taylor
Chronicles the revolutionary activities of Harriet Tubman, Frances Seward, and Martha Wright--friends and neighbors in Auburn, New York--discussing their vital roles in the Underground Railroad, abolition, and the early women's rights movement. - Simon and Schuster
From the intimate perspective of three friends and neighbors in mid-nineteenth century Auburn, New York'the 'agitators' of the title'acclaimed author Dorothy Wickenden tells the fascinating and crucially American stories of abolition, the underground railroad, the early women's rights movement, and the Civil War.
Harriet Tubman'no-nonsense, funny, uncannily prescient, and strategically brilliant'was one of the most important conductors on the underground railroad and hid the enslaved men, women and children she rescued in the basement kitchens of Martha Wright, Quaker mother of seven, and Frances Seward, wife of Governor, then Senator, then Secretary of State William H. Seward.
Harriet worked for the Union Army in South Carolina as a nurse and spy, and took part in a river raid in which 750 enslaved people were freed from rice plantations. Martha, a 'dangerous woman' in the eyes of her neighbors and a harsh critic of Lincoln's policy on slavery, organized women's rights and abolitionist conventions with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Frances gave freedom seekers money and referrals and aided in their education. The most conventional of the three friends, she hid her radicalism in public; behind the scenes, she argued strenuously with her husband about the urgency of immediate abolition.
Many of the most prominent figures in the history books'Lincoln, Seward, Daniel Webster, Frederick Douglass, Charles Sumner, John Brown, Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Lloyd Garrison'are seen through the discerning eyes of the protagonists. So are the most explosive political debates: about women's roles and rights during the abolition crusade, emancipation, and the arming of Black troops; and about the true meaning of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
Beginning two decades before the Civil War, when Harriet Tubman was still enslaved and Martha and Frances were young women bound by law and tradition, The Agitators ends two decades after the war, in a radically changed United States. Wickenden brings this extraordinary period of our history to life through the richly detailed letters her characters wrote several times a week. Like Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals and David McCullough's John Adams, Wickenden's The Agitators is revelatory, riveting, and profoundly relevant to our own time. - Simon and Schuster
An LA Times Best Book of the Year
âEngrossing... examines the major events of the mid 19th century through the lives of three key figures in the abolitionist and womenâs rights movements.â âSmithsonian
From the executive editor of The New Yorker, a riveting, provocative, and revelatory history of abolition and womenâs rights, told through the story of three womenâHarriet Tubman, Frances Seward, and Martha Wrightâin the years before, during and after the Civil War.
âThe Agitators tells the story of America before the Civil War through the lives of three women who advocated for the abolition of slavery and for womenâs rights as the country split apart. Harriet Tubman, Martha Coffin Wright, and Frances A. Seward are the examples we need right nowâanother time of divisiveness and dissension over our nationâs purpose âto form a more perfect union.ââ âHillary Rodham Clinton
In the 1850s, Harriet Tubman, strategically brilliant and uncannily prescient, rescued some seventy enslaved people from Marylandâs Eastern Shore and shepherded them north along the underground railroad. One of her regular stops was Auburn, New York, where she entrusted passengers to Martha Coffin Wright, a Quaker mother of seven, and Frances A. Seward, the wife of William H. Seward, who served over the years as governor, senator, and secretary of state under Abraham Lincoln. During the Civil War, Tubman worked for the Union Army in South Carolina as a nurse and spy, and took part in a spectacular river raid in which she helped to liberate 750 slaves from several rice plantations.
Wright, a âdangerous womanâ in the eyes of her neighbors, worked side by side with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony to organize womenâs rights and anti-slavery conventions across New York State, braving hecklers and mobs when she spoke. Frances Seward, the most conventional of the three friends, hid her radicalism in public, while privately acting as a political adviser to her husband, pressing him to persuade President Lincoln to move immediately on emancipation.
The Agitators opens in the 1820s, when Tubman is enslaved and Wright and Seward are young homemakers bound by law and tradition, and ends after the war. Many of the most prominent figures of the eraâLincoln, William H. Seward, Frederick Douglass, Daniel Webster, Charles Sumner, John Brown, William Lloyd Garrisonâare seen through the discerning eyes of the protagonists. So are the most explosive political debates: about the civil rights of African Americans and women, about the enlistment of Black troops, and about opposing interpretations of the Constitution.
Through richly detailed letters from the time and exhaustive research, Wickenden traces the second American revolution these women fought to bring about, the toll it took on their families, and its lasting effects on the country. Riveting and profoundly relevant to our own time, The Agitators brings a vibrant, original voice to this transformative period in our history.
