Carrie Chapman Catt's Voice for the Voice
A TRUE TALE WITH
A CHERRY ON TOP
Union Square Kids
(pub.7.11.2023) 48 pages
Author: Jasmine A. Stirling
Illustrator: Udayana Lugo
Character: Carrie Chapman Catt
Overview:
" As a child, Carrie Chapman Catt asked a lot of questions: How many stars are in the sky? Do germs have personalities? And why can’t Mama vote?
Catt’s curiosity led her to college, to a career in journalism, and finally to becoming the president of The National American Woman Suffrage Association. Catt knew the movement needed a change—and she set to work mobilizing women (and men) across the nation to dare to question a woman’s right to vote.
On August 18, 1920, Catt pinned a yellow rose to her dress and waited while lawmakers in Tennessee cast their deciding votes to ratify the 19th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. After a seventy-year campaign, had women finally won the right to vote? "
Tantalizing taste:
"Happy tears wet suffs' faces.
Yellow rose petals fluttered through the air.
Carrie's heart
beat
beat
beat with relief and exhaustion and gratitude.
Silently, she let the news sink into her bones."
And something more: I'm always intrigued by the research supporting a picture book biography. Jasmine A. Stirling in the Author's Note explains that "I spent several years researching Carrie's life, pouring over her letters at the Library of Congress, getting photos of her room from the historian at the Hermitage Hotel, consulting queer history, and tracking down and collaborating with a descendent of Harry T. Burn [the lawmaker who received a letter from his mother, a follower of Carie Chapman, and changed his vote, the decisive vote, to YES]."
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