The Agitators by Dorothy Wickenden

Reprinted from the Citizen:

As someone who lived in Auburn most of my life, I was aware of how historic the city is but author Dorothy Wickenden brings the Civil War years in Auburn front and center in her new book, The Agitators that I learned so much more.

“The Agitators- Three Friends Who Fought For Abolition and Women’s Rights” highlights the lives of Frances Seward, Harriet Tubman, and Martha Wright, and how they often defied society’s conventions about women to work for the causes they believed in.

Frances Seward, wife to William Henry Seward, a United States Senator, New York State Governor, and Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln, wanted to become more involved in the cause of abolition of slavery.

Seward’s home was a stop on the Underground Railroad, hiding slaves who had escaped from their bondage in the southern states. She also helped found schools for Black children, and sold land to free Blacks.

Martha Wright and Frances became friends because their husbands were both lawyers, and the wives were both considered “outliers”. They grew up as Quakers, had young children, “a passion for reading and an antipathy to pretentiousness, and a burgeoning interest in social reform”.

They met Harriet Tubman after she escaped from slavery and was taking other people on their way to freedom in Canada. Harriet had little money, and Frances sold her land at a reduced cost to build a house, where Harriet eventually brought her parents to live, a place that is now a National Park Historical site on South Street. 

Martha helped organize the first women’s rights meeting in 1848 in Seneca Falls. Wright became active in the suffragette movement along with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. “She rarely encountered an institution she didn’t question, and although convention dictated most of the circumstances of her life, she liked breaking rules.”

While Frances had a fairly large household staff, Martha, mother to six children, did not. Martha did the housework, cooked meals, cared for the children, sewed their clothes, made soap, and canned fruit.

Because Frances’ husband was a prominent political figure, she couldn’t break as many rules as Martha could. Frances felt very strongly that slavery should be abolished everywhere and quickly, but her husband had to be more politic. If he wanted to make changes, he had to compromise. It put a great strain on the marriage.

Frances and Martha each had sons who fought on the front lines of the Civil War. While they were proud of their sons for fighting the evil of slavery, as mothers they worried about their safety and health as many people who died during the war perished due to illnesses like tuberculosis and dysentery.

For Civil War buffs, there is plenty to keep their interest as battles and strategies are related in riveting detail. Wickenden studied under prominent Abraham Lincoln biographer David Herbert Donald, and readers interested in the 16th President will find much to satisfy them here.

Many of us know Harriet Tubman served as spy and nurse for the Union Army, and Wickenden shines a new, more detailed light on her service here. It is shameful that Harriet Tubman, who served her country so bravely, had to fight so hard to get the pay that was due to her.

We learn about the struggles within the Women’s Right movement. During the Civil War, many of the suffragettes turned their attentions to the abolition of slavery, while some of the women felt that if they stopped fighting for women’s suffrage, the movement would lose valuable momentum. It caused a rift between the two closely aligned causes, as they had to decide if they could fight for the right to vote for women and Black men at the same time, or if preference should be given to suffrage for Black men first.

The Agitators is a must-read book for people who enjoy learning about Civil War-era history, the history of the women’s movement, and especially the history of the city of Auburn through these three remarkable women. A tour of the Seward House, Harriet Tubman’s home, Fort Hill Cemetery, the National Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, and other local historic sites will be on your list of things to do. Dorothy Wickenden brings our small historic city to vivid life here in her fascinating book.

The Agitators by Dorothy Wickenden- A+

Published by Scribner

Hardcover, $30, 384 pages

Friday 5ive- March 26, 2021

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly blog post featuring five things that caught my attention this week. Can you believe that it is the last Friday in March already? This month has flown by.

1)  Spring is here and we passed by The Mark Hotel in our neighborhood which has this lovely cart of flowers outside their front door to brighten everyone's day.

2)  We had our annual St. Patrick's Day dinner on Saturday, a few days late. I made the traditional corned beef and cabbage dinner, with carrots and Irish champ potatoes. The highlight of our dinner is always the Irish Bread Pudding with Caramel Whiskey Sauce, our favorite dessert of the year. I found the recipe in Cooking Light magazine years ago, and it is a family legacy now. The recipe is here. This year I also found these cute cookies at Citerella, a gourmet food store in our neighborhood. They were tasty!

3)  With the weather turning nicer, I met my husband at La Villetta, a local Italian restaurant halfway between his office and our apartment. We ate outside, and I ordered an appetizer of figs stuffed with blue cheese and walnuts and wrapped in proscuitto, over a bed of greens with a light creamy dressing over all. The presentation was so pretty and it was delicious.

4)  I watched the Academy Award Best Picture nominee Nomadland on Hulu this week. Frances McDormand is deservedly nominated for Best Actress in her role as Fern, a 60-something woman who lost her husband, and then her job and home when the manufacturing plant where she worked at closed. Fern ends up living in a van, and traveling around the west looking for work. She works the holiday season at an Amazon fullfilment center, and follows her friends around working in jobs like maintenance at a campground. The movie is based on Jessica Bruder's book of the same name, and Chloe Zhao's magnificent direction of the movie has earned her an Academy Award nomination as well. The one thing that you take from this movie is how invisible women of this age can be. It's a thought-provoking, heart-breaking piece of art.

5)  I read two books this week, one nonfiction and one fiction. Dorothy Wickenden's The Agitators, tells the true story of three women who lived in Auburn in the 1860s- Frances Seward (wife of Henry Seward), Martha Wright, and Harriet Tubman- and fought for women's suffrage, and the abolition of slavery. It's filled with lots of fascinating historical facts about my hometown of Auburn, NY, and students of Civil War era-history will want to put this one on their To Be Read list. My full review will publish in April in The Citizen newspaper and online at auburnpub.com. 

Adele Parks' domestic drama, Just My Luck, asks the question "what would you do if you won millions of dollars in the lottery?" Three couples who have been friends for fifteen years since their babies were born play the lottery once a month together. When two of the families decide they no longer wish to play and drop out, the lone couple left hits the winning numbers the following week. What happens next reveals cracks in their friendship and marriages, affects their children, and may make you rethink playing Lotto every week. My full review publishes on Monday. 

Stay safe, socially distant, wear a mask, wash your hands, and get the vaccine when it's your turn. We are so close to getting back to some type of normalcy.

This post was shared with The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader's Weekend Cooking posts.

Nothing Daunted by Dorothy Wickenden

This is my review of Dorothy Wickenden's Nothing Daunted, which ran on auburnpub.com on August 12, 2011.

In 2008, author Dorothy Wickenden found a folder that contained letters from her grandmother, Dorothy Woodruff. Her grandmother had written these letters in 1916-1917, when she and her best friend, Ros Underwood, lived and taught school in Elkhead, Colo.

The letters became the basis for Wickenden’s fascinating narrative non-fiction book, “Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West.”

Dorothy and Ros grew up in Auburn, daughters of prominent citizens. Their ancestors were “entrepreneurs and lawyers and bankers, who had become wealthy during the Industrial Revolution.” Dorothy’s grandfather lived next door to William Seward on South Street.

The girls graduated from Smith College, one of the first women’s colleges in the country. Following graduation, they made a “grand tour” of Europe, and spent a great deal of time in Paris.

Upon their return from Europe, it was assumed that they would marry prominent men and spend their time doing charity work in Auburn. But the ladies did not find any men who interested them enough to marry, and when they heard about a small school in Elkhead, Colo. looking for two teachers, the adventurous ladies went westward.

Ferry Carpenter was a young Princeton graduate who had also earned a law degree from Harvard. He was drawn to the west, and longed to be a homesteader. He ended up in Colorado, and wanted to start a school for the families who lived in Elkhead.

Carpenter had an ulterior motive behind starting the school. There were few single women in the rugged area, and he thought that if he opened a school, he would be able to hire a few lovely single women to teach, who may fall in love with eligible Elkhead bachelors, marry, and stay for good.

The section that describes Carpenter and some of the men reviewing the teachers’ applications is charming and funny. Carpenter asked the applicants to send photos of themselves, and the men reviewed the photos, choosing Dorothy and Ros for their beauty as well as their brains.

Neither Ros nor Dorothy had a teaching degree, but they were well-educated. They took their newfound lifestyle in stride, sharing a bed in the small home of the Harrison family, riding horses through blizzards daily to get to school, attending dances and potluck suppers for entertainment, and wandering through the countryside with Ferry Carpenter and his friend Bob Perry.

They became good teachers, although teaching the children to cook was a bit of a challenge for them. Everyone in the community loved them, and they cherished their students. The families were mostly poor, and Dorothy and Ros’ families and friends in Auburn sent huge packages for Christmas, filled with gifts and foodstuffs for the students, as well as presents for Carpenter, Perry and the Harrison family.

The chapter “The Girls From Auburn” is of special interest to people from our area. It opens with a lovely picture of Dorothy and Ros in a canoe on Owasco Lake. Dorothy’s family is described in detail, and many of the names will be familiar, including the Beardsleys, Dorothy’s maternal family.

The reader is immersed in the Auburn of the era: Dorothy going to the Burtis Opera House, summering at Willow Point on Owasco Lake, Eliza Osborne founding the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union, her son Thomas Mott Osborne’s prison reform movement, Fort Hill Cemetery, and President McKinley assassin Leon Czolgosz’ execution at Auburn Prison.

We travel from Auburn of the early 20th century to Europe to New York City, take a train to Michigan and end up in Colorado. Dorothy and Ros were prolific letter writers, and thank goodness their families in Auburn saved their letters for Wickenden to put together so beautifully in this narrative.

Most of the book is about Dorothy and Ros’ time in Elkhead, and it reads like a grown-up version of “Little House on the Prairie.” (Remember when Mary and Laura grew up and became teachers?) The writing is so vivid, you can feel the icy cold wind and the blowing snow, and see the beautiful flowers and mountains.

Their time in Elkhead comes to an end, and the ladies do eventually find love and marriage. (You’ll have to read the book to find out who the lucky guys are.)

What I like about narrative non-fiction is that it tells a true story written in a way that is accessible and interesting to the reader, much like good fiction. Wickenden teaches narrative non-fiction writing in New York City, and she writes in such a manner that you can’t wait to turn the pages to see what happens next to these amazing ladies.

The notes, acknowledgements and bibliography at the end of the book are nearly as interesting as the book itself. Wickenden references all of the people in Auburn who assisted her, and according to her publisher Simon & Schuster’s website, she will make an appearance on Sept. 17 at the Auburn Public Theater to discuss this book.

I was happy to see that “Nothing Daunted” has been named to many must-read summer lists and is on The New York Times’ e-books best-seller list. This fascinating read is for anyone who likes a crackling good true story, and holds special interest for Auburnians. It’s also a great story of girl power and the bravery and adventurous attitude that these incredible ladies had. I give it my highest rating of five stars.

Read more: http://auburnpub.com/lifestyles/article_532ccf0e-c546-11e0-b594-001cc4c03286.html#ixzz1V6nOfpJ6