The Scarlet Sisters: Sex, Suffrage, and Scandal in the Gilded Age
Sensational doesn’t begin to describe the over-the-top reaction that greeted every aspect of the lives of nineteenth-century America’s two most controversial sisters.  Flamboyant, outspoken, opportunistic Victoria Claflin Woodhull and her younger sister, Tennie, were self-aggrandizing scene-stealers who tangled with Henry Ward Beecher, swindled Cornelius Vanderbilt, and antagonized Susan B. Anthony.  Yet for all their pomp and bombast, they were unrepentant champions of equal rights for women in everything from the bedroom to the boardroom, the voting booth to the battlefield.  Dismissively patronized by men for being empty-headed fripperies and scathingly ostracized by women for their unladylike bravura, the sisters courageously battled such defamatory characterizations  to bring their controversial views on monogamy and suffrage to packed lecture halls throughout the country.  MacPherson draws a detailed portrait of the roller-coaster, rags-to-riches lives of two backwoods country girls who, seeking to better their own situation, hoped to do the same for women everywhere.  Sadly, MacPherson concludes, many of their causes remain little changed 150 years after their tireless campaigns began. --Carol Haggas