Mrs. Stanton's Bible

Mrs. Stanton's Bible by Kern, Kathi. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780801482885.

Mrs. Stantons Bible traces the impact of Elizabeth Cady Stantons religious dissent on the suffrage movement at the turn of the century and presents the first book-length reading of her radical text, the Womans Bible. Stanton is best remembered for organizing the Seneca Falls convention at which she first called for womens right to vote. Yet she spent the last two decades of her life working for another cause: womens liberation from religious oppression. Stanton came to believe that political enfranchisement was meaningless without the systematic dismantling of the churchs stifling authority over womens lives. In 1895, she collaboratively authored this biblical exegesis, just as the womens movement was becoming more conservative. Stanton found herself arguing not only against male clergy members but also against devout female suffragists. Kathi Kern demonstrates that the Womans Bible itself played a fundamental role in the movements new conservatism because it sparked Stantons censure and the elimination of her fellow radicals from the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Mrs. Stantons Bible dramatically portrays this crucial chapter of womens history and facilitates the understanding of one of the movements most controversial texts.