Book Review

Historians of woman suffrage movements in both England and the United States have long noted connections between the public opinion campaigns for "Votes for Women" in those countries. That slogan crossed the ocean, as did buttons, banners, songs, and special events such as fund-raising "Self-Denial Weeks," as well as the attention-getting political tactics of streetcorner speakers and "suffrage processions." However, connections between the two movements, although noted, have not gotten close attention until now—and not a moment too soon. Suffragists' "century of struggle" ended almost a century ago, first in Britain and then in the United States, but this study is a timely contribution to international studies as well as women's history.

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Patricia Greenwood Harrison's careful examination of women's correspondence, newspapers, and organizational sources argues against accounts of the interoceanic interaction as a one-way movement of ideas from Britain to America, especially in the case of colorful tactics copied after 1914 by Congressional Union leaders in the latter. As Harrison states, "borrowing of British tactics took place long before Alice Paul and Lucy Burns arrived on the scene" back in the United States after their experiences as expatriates in England, the "storm center"of suffragism when the American movement still languished in "the doldrums." But Harrison shows that British women also copied American tactics often attributed to them, such as the self-denial weeks actually started by Susan B. Anthony.

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