Remarkable New Jersey Women

This fine collection of New Jersey biographries reminds me once again of what women can do--and have done. From a young striker who is repeatedly jailed for her insistence on workers' rights, to a freed former slave who's burned out of her business but keeps returning, to a talented writer with a disappearing husband and a bunch of kids--these women all have one characteristic in common: persistence. They just keep at it. And eventually, they succeed. Or at least, endure.The writing is beautiful throughout. I've been a fan of Lynn Wenzel's since she was editor of the now-defunct newspaper that came out of New Jersey: New Directions for Women. She always wrote marvelously. In this collection her writing is, if anything, even sharper. Each story is vividly told, and accompanied by an unusual photograph. I found myself returning to the photo over and over again while I read each story. The incredible, determined gaze of Sylvia Dubois, the former slave (and the haunted look on the face of her daughter) especially captured me. I was also surprised by the beauty of Alice Paul, one of the few women in the book I was already familiar with. She was the originator of the Equal Rights Amendment, and a leading suffragist in the early 20th century. Noticing my own surprise at how she looked, I realized how, unconsciously, I'd bought into the stereotype of the "battle-axe suffragette," the image I first encountered in childhood. Even though I've been a feminist for decades since then, obviously I retained that image of our foremothers--for I was shocked by the face of this youngish, lovely woman. THAT'S Alice Paul? I thought. Her story is one of the most important here, simply because the impact of her work was so far-reaching. (Her pressure in 1964, for instance, was part of the reason we have gender added to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act--and this is the significant clause which has mandated equality for girls in public school sports, etc.) I am grateful that these exceptional photographs accompanied each story.A big Thank You to Lynn Wenzel and Carol Binkowski for rescuing these twelve women from the obscurity in which most of them have rested, and for shedding more light on those whom we already knew of. We could use Volume 2 and 3 of Remarkable New Jersey Women. The authors do say in their introduction that it was hard to make the selection, since they found so many qualified candidates for inclusion. So let's hear it for an expansion of the series.

The remarkable women in this book came to life and reminded this reader of how much they sacrificed for the sake of women then, now, and of the future. To have researched all the details of these women's lives was a monumental task in itself. To have taken this research and written about each woman as if we were there witnessing the events, is an art. Bravo to Lynn Wenzel and Carol J. Binkowski for writing a book that is not only a history lesson, but makes readers care about all these women who overcame adversity and prejudice. Their stories are all inspiring, and I recommend this book to women (AND MEN!) of all ages.