Narrators Heather Alicia Simms, Anne Twomey, and Gabra Zackman harmonize to memorable effect in Dorothy Wickenden’s remarkable examination of three friends who led twin battles for abolition and women’s rights in nineteenth-century America. Simms gives a witty and rousing rendition of Harriet Tubman, freedom fighter extraordinaire; Twomey is gentle and steely as Francis Seward, the publicly conventional and privately radical wife of Secretary of State William H. Seward; and Gabra Zackman is energized and clear as Martha Wright, uncompromising Quaker mother of seven. Their surprising and inspiring lives are woven together with those of such luminaries as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frederick Douglass, and Abraham Lincoln, for between them, they knew everyone. Informative, entertaining, unnerving, and stirring—listen and then share this book with all your friends. A.C.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
The Agitators: Three Friends Who Fought for Abolition and Women's Rights
Narrated by Heather Alicia Simms, Anne Twomey, Gabra Zackman
Dorothy WickendenUnabridged — 13 hours, 8 minutes
The Agitators: Three Friends Who Fought for Abolition and Women's Rights
Narrated by Heather Alicia Simms, Anne Twomey, Gabra Zackman
Dorothy WickendenUnabridged — 13 hours, 8 minutes
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Overview
“Engrossing... examines the major events of the mid 19th century through the lives of three key figures in the abolitionist and women's rights movements.” -Smithsonian
From the executive editor of The New Yorker, a riveting, provocative, and revelatory history told through the story of three women-Harriet Tubman, Frances Seward, and Martha Wright-in the years before, during and after the Civil War.
In the 1850s, Harriet Tubman, strategically brilliant and uncannily prescient, rescued some seventy enslaved people from Maryland's 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 “dangerous woman” in the eyes of her neighbors, worked side by side with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony to organize women's 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 era-Lincoln, William H. Seward, Frederick Douglass, Daniel Webster, Charles Sumner, John Brown, William Lloyd Garrison-are 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.
Editorial Reviews
★ 02/01/2021
New Yorker executive editor Wickenden (Nothing Daunted) expertly weaves together the biographies of “co-conspirators and intimate friends” Harriet Tubman, Martha Wright, and Frances Seward in this novelistic history. When Wright, the younger sister of abolitionist Lucretia Mott, and Seward, the wife of U.S. senator and secretary of state William Henry Seward, got to know Tubman in the early 1850s, they were already “in the process of transforming themselves from conventional homemakers into insurgents.” Wright and Seward hosted fugitive slaves on the Underground Railroad and helped Tubman to build and sustain a free Black community in Auburn, N.Y., where all three women lived from 1857 on. Wickenden details the links between the suffragist and abolitionist movements in the U.S., noting that women like Seward and Wright, by virtue of being in the private sphere, had a moral clarity about the evil of slavery that male politicians lacked, and describes how post-Civil War tensions over whether Black men or white women should get the vote first divided the suffragist movement. Through extensive research and fluid writing, Wickenden rescues Wright and Seward from obscurity and provides a new perspective on Tubman’s life and work. This is an essential addition to the history of American progressivism. Agent: Amanda Urban, ICM Partners. (Mar.)
Praise for The Agitators
"This collective biography draws out the distinct voices of its characters while molding them into a rich ensemble.”
—New York Times Book Review
"Wickenden, executive editor of the New Yorker, does an almost perfect job of braiding together the stories of three very different women."
—Los Angeles Times
"The Agitators is an impressive narrative of three women who were at the center of a burgeoning movement. Their trailblazing path is captured and related deftly by the author, their triumphs and tragedies narrated emphatically for a modern audience. All three women lived and breathed for the freedom of all men and women, selflessly giving as much as they were capable. An A+ historical narrative."
—San Francisco Book Review
"Wickenden does a brilliant job of weaving all the complicated threads together, telling a compelling story that we thought we knew well. This is history at its best: personal, powerful, and inspiring.”
—Marissa Moss, New York Journal of Books
"An epic and intimate history. . . . Wickenden's commitment to keeping her trio in the frame and in focus showcases prodigious narrative control. The Agitators is a masterpiece, not least, of structure. . . . . Entwining these three asymmetrical lives as deftly as Wickenden does proves illuminating."
—Jane Kamensky, New York Times Book Review
"Absorbing and richly rewarding . . . . [Wickenden] traces the Auburn women's lives with intelligence, compassion, and verve . . . [and her] assessment of the era leading up to the Civil War will resonate with readers in our own fractious era."
—Melanie Kirkpatrick, Wall Street Journal
"She brings a reporter’s eye for detail to this complex history... [and] invites readers to take a closer look at the path of American progress and the women who guided it."
—Carla Jean Whitley, BookPage
"Told with literary flare, Dorothy Wickenden's The Agitators sheds some much-needed light on the lives and passions of a small circle of abolitionists: Harriet Tubman, Martha Wright, and Frances Seward."
—Bustle
"New Yorker executive editor Wickenden brings three fascinating women to life in rich, humanizing detail ... Wickenden pulls this history out of the dry dustiness of fact and adds color and warmth to its retelling. The women of our shared past deserve more treatments like this."
—Booklist
"Riveting. . . . [Wickenden] weaves [these] stories together with gravity and humor in a narrative so tightly knit it reads like accomplished literary fiction. . . . The Agitators will move you, and it will make you sad. So much of what convulsed the country in the 19th century remains with us: mob violence, virulent racism and an appalling disregard for human dignity. But there's another message: People of fierce and heartfelt principles can bend history to their will. If you're an agitator, even a quiet one, read this book."
—Mary Ann Gwinn, The Star Tribune
Praise for The Agitators
"This collective biography draws out the distinct voices of its characters while molding them into a rich ensemble.”
—New York Times Book Review
"Wickenden, executive editor of the New Yorker, does an almost perfect job of braiding together the stories of three very different women."
—Los Angeles Times
"The Agitators is an impressive narrative of three women who were at the center of a burgeoning movement. Their trailblazing path is captured and related deftly by the author, their triumphs and tragedies narrated emphatically for a modern audience. All three women lived and breathed for the freedom of all men and women, selflessly giving as much as they were capable. An A+ historical narrative."
—San Francisco Book Review
"Wickenden does a brilliant job of weaving all the complicated threads together, telling a compelling story that we thought we knew well. This is history at its best: personal, powerful, and inspiring.”
—Marissa Moss, New York Journal of Books
"An epic and intimate history. . . . Wickenden's commitment to keeping her trio in the frame and in focus showcases prodigious narrative control. The Agitators is a masterpiece, not least, of structure. . . . . Entwining these three asymmetrical lives as deftly as Wickenden does proves illuminating."
—Jane Kamensky, New York Times Book Review
"Absorbing and richly rewarding . . . . [Wickenden] traces the Auburn women's lives with intelligence, compassion, and verve . . . [and her] assessment of the era leading up to the Civil War will resonate with readers in our own fractious era."
—Melanie Kirkpatrick, Wall Street Journal
"She brings a reporter’s eye for detail to this complex history... [and] invites readers to take a closer look at the path of American progress and the women who guided it."
—Carla Jean Whitley, BookPage
"Told with literary flare, Dorothy Wickenden's The Agitators sheds some much-needed light on the lives and passions of a small circle of abolitionists: Harriet Tubman, Martha Wright, and Frances Seward."
—Bustle
"New Yorker executive editor Wickenden brings three fascinating women to life in rich, humanizing detail ... Wickenden pulls this history out of the dry dustiness of fact and adds color and warmth to its retelling. The women of our shared past deserve more treatments like this."
—Booklist
"Riveting. . . . [Wickenden] weaves [these] stories together with gravity and humor in a narrative so tightly knit it reads like accomplished literary fiction. . . . The Agitators will move you, and it will make you sad. So much of what convulsed the country in the 19th century remains with us: mob violence, virulent racism and an appalling disregard for human dignity. But there's another message: People of fierce and heartfelt principles can bend history to their will. If you're an agitator, even a quiet one, read this book."
—Mary Ann Gwinn, The Star Tribune
★ 04/01/2021
With this latest work, journalist and author Wickenden (Nothing Daunted) follows the lives of three friends and heroes of the women's rights and abolitionist movements, and describes the ways they impacted both causes. Wickenden effectively argues that these two movements, which were gathering steam during the mid-1800s, did not exist independently of one another; rather, they were intertwined. The author's accessible, engaging writing highlights the life of Frances Seward (1805–65), whose husband William H. Seward, secretary of state to Abraham Lincoln, is also given careful consideration. Along with the Sewards, the book also chronicles the lives of close friends Martha Coffin Wright, a feminist and abolitionist, and Harriet Tubman, who was born enslaved in Maryland and left a lasting legacy after escaping slavery and establishing the Underground Railroad. The author effectively places Seward, Wright, and Tubman in historical context. Accounts of Tubman's life in the Underground Railroad and as a scout in the Union army shine particularly brightly, narrated like the daring exploits they were. VERDICT Filling a gap in the telling of women's and abolitionist history, this highly readable book gives these three women their due. Wickenden's deft touch will allow this book to appeal to a wide audience.—Stacy Shaw, Denver
Narrators Heather Alicia Simms, Anne Twomey, and Gabra Zackman harmonize to memorable effect in Dorothy Wickenden’s remarkable examination of three friends who led twin battles for abolition and women’s rights in nineteenth-century America. Simms gives a witty and rousing rendition of Harriet Tubman, freedom fighter extraordinaire; Twomey is gentle and steely as Francis Seward, the publicly conventional and privately radical wife of Secretary of State William H. Seward; and Gabra Zackman is energized and clear as Martha Wright, uncompromising Quaker mother of seven. Their surprising and inspiring lives are woven together with those of such luminaries as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frederick Douglass, and Abraham Lincoln, for between them, they knew everyone. Informative, entertaining, unnerving, and stirring—listen and then share this book with all your friends. A.C.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
2021-01-06
The executive editor of the New Yorkertells the storiesof three female friends who defied the social conventions of their day to fight for women's rights and abolition.
Harriet Tubman, Martha Coffin Wright, and Frances A. Seward made history as females who fought against the subjection of women and slaves in the 19th century. Wickenden braids together the intersecting threads of their lives and accomplishments into a highly readable, instructive historical narrative. The daughter of Nantucket Quakers who opposed slavery and sister of early feminist Lucretia Mott, Wright came to know Seward in 1839 while residing in Auburn, New York. Although Seward lived a life of privilege, the two women bonded over many shared interests, including social reform and an “antipathy to pretentiousness.” Wright soon became involved in the abolitionist movement and made her home “a station on the underground railroad.” In 1849, Tubman escaped from her master in Maryland and made her way to Philadelphia. There, she met Mott, who actively “preached against slavery and lambasted slavers and clergymen for citing the Bible to justify their sins.” Wickenden convincingly speculates that Mott introduced Tubman to both Wright and Seward in the late 1840s. The three quickly formed friendships that united them across race and class in a common fight against White patriarchal oppression. The author sets their stories against a tumultuous backdrop of events—e.g., the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 and the "bleeding" Kansas massacres of the 1850s—that not only defined the revolutionary spirit of the era, but also caused divisions that still haunt the American soul today. Yet in the strength of the bonds forged among Wright, Seward, and Tubman, Wickenden offers hope for a healing of old wounds and a future where "the dignity and equality of all Americans" is an authentic reality.
A well-researched, sharp portrait of the “protagonists in an inside-out story about the second American revolution."
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940173235251 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Simon & Schuster |
| Publication date: | 03/30/2021 |
| Series: | Bestselling Women's History |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
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