Free Thinker

January 1, 2020
A history of an important suffragist that serves as "a quintessentially American story of self-making." Hamlin (American Studies/Miami Univ.; From Eve to Evolution: Darwin, Science, and Women's Rights in Gilded Age America, 2015) chronicles the life of Helen Hamilton Gardener (1853-1925), born Alice Chenoweth, who was involved with a married man while serving as the principal of a Sandusky, Ohio, teacher training school. To avoid the label of "fallen woman," she moved with her lover, Charles Smart, to Detroit and then, in 1884, to New York City, where she changed her name. She joined the free thought movement led by Robert Ingersoll, "the great agnostic," and became its most influential woman. Gardener was an early proponent of women's rights, working to raise the legal age of consent to 16, giving women the right to own property, and attacking the religious and cultural biases of scientific research used to degrade women. Ingersoll mentored her, encouraging her speaking engagements and writing, including her books Men, Women, and Gods, and Other Lectures and Is This Your Son, My Lord?, which sold more than 25,000 copies following its publication in 1891. For two decades she was a regular presence at Ingersoll's weekly "at homes," which featured some of the most interesting people in New York. Her writing ability opened doors for her, especially her introductory letters in which she tried to connect to important persons. Woodrow Wilson was Gardener's greatest connection, and her work lobbying him to help the passage of the 19th Amendment was indispensable. After Smart's death in 1901, she went to Puerto Rico, where she got reacquainted with Col. Selden Allen Day, whom she eventually married. After traveling the world for a few years, in 1910, they moved to Washington, D.C., where Gardener became a leader at the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Her tactics to woo and influence Washington's lawmakers were legendary. Throughout the chronological, passionately researched narrative, Hamlin captures all angles of her fascinating subject. A captivating story of yet another strong, brilliant woman who should be better known.

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January 27, 2020
Hamlin (From Eve to Evolution), a professor of American studies at Miami University of Ohio, delivers an eye-opening biography of women’s rights activist Helen Hamilton Gardener (1853–1925). Born Mary Alice Chenoweth, Gardener became the youngest school principal in Ohio at the age of 21. When a newspaper exposed her affair with the married school commissioner, Charles Smart, she left Ohio, became a protégé of noted “freethinker” Robert Ingersoll, and delivered her first lecture as Helen Hamilton Gardener in New York City in 1884 (“Hamilton” and “Gardener” were Smart’s grandmothers’ maiden names). In speeches and writings, Gardener refuted claims that women had different brain structures than men, challenged traditional views on sexuality, and led a nationwide campaign to raise the age of sexual consent to 18 (most states had it at 12 or 14). After Smart’s death in 1901 (the couple lived together in New York, but never married), Gardener settled in Washington, D.C., where she helped to organize the 1913 women’s suffrage parade and forged close relationships with members of Woodrow Wilson’s White House. Following passage of the 19th Amendment in 1919, she joined the Civil Service Commission as “the highest-ranking and highest-paid woman in federal government.” Though the book’s middle section occasionally flags, Hamlin provides a captivating behind-the-scenes view of the suffrage movement on the cusp of its final victory, and her eloquent account sparkles with Gardener’s sharp personality. Feminists and fans of women’s history will be exhilarated.

March 1, 2020

Hamlin (American studies, Miami Univ. of Ohio) has made an important contribution to feminist historiography in this well-researched account that sheds light on radical reform movements of late 19th-century America and the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920. Helen Hamilton Gardener (1853-1925) was intimately involved in these activities; indeed, as this book argues, she dedicated her life to realizing the preconditions that made the vote possible. Born Mary Alice Chenoweth, Gardener reinvented herself after a sex scandal in postbellum Ohio caused her to lose both her job and her reputation. Becoming a popular lecturer and author, she used her experiences to target economic insecurity and the sexual double standards applied to men vs. women. Her marriage to a retired army colonel eventually helped introduce her to political circles in Washington, DC, which Hamlin effectively details, particularly the infighting among suffrage groups and Gardener's rivalry with the better-known Alice Paul. She also addresses the racial divisions of the 19th Amendment. VERDICT Based on archival sources and Gardener's own voluminous writings, this highly readable book should provide plenty of new insight into the period and Gardener's fascinating life for general readers, scholars, and aspiring political activists alike.--Marie M. Mullaney, Caldwell Coll., NJ

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Starred review from March 1, 2020
In this page-turning biography, historian Hamlin (From Eve to Evolution, 2014) illuminates a forgotten force in the free thought, women's rights, and women's suffrage movements of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Gardener refused to accept the legal disabilities facing women like herself or the customs and conventional wisdom in which they were grounded, and devoted her adult life to tearing them down. As a young teacher named Alice Chenoweth, she rejected the label of "ruined woman" that came with the discovery of her affair with a married man. Instead, she reinvented herself as the public intellectual Helen Hamilton Gardener, continued the relationship, and used her essays and lectures to debunk Christian dogma and pseudoscientific claims for male supremacy. Gardener then turned to fiction as a vehicle for attacking social and sexual double standards, a form of activism which, Hamlin argues, helped to create a world in which women could finally be accepted as reasonable beings and potential voters. Gardener became an effective lobbyist for the federal women's suffrage amendment before ending her career as the first woman member of the U.S. Civil Service Commission. This vivid and exuberant portrait of a dynamic, complex activist and her world is highly recommended.WOMEN IN FOCUS(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)