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This content downloaded from 128.227.218.196 on Wed, 14 May 2014 13:09:31 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
1058
The Journal of American History
book, to found the Woman'sNationalRepublican Association(wNRA) in 1888. The WiNRA was the first women's partisanorganization that was nationalin scope and recognizedby the Republicanleadership.By 1910, the year that Fosterdied, therewereas manyas a thousandlocalwomen'sclubsunderthe wNas aegis. Fosterincludedblackwomen'sclubsin the wNRA; her effortscomplementedthe effortsof blackleaderssuch as MaryChurchTerrellto get out the vote for the Republicanparty. ProgressiveEra reformers,most notably JaneAddams,built on Foster'swork.Drawing on their experiencein the legislativetrenches, Addamsand her alliesaddeda powerfulargument to the suffragists'arsenal.Once women succeededin a givenreformgoal, men in public office invariablytook overthe programsor institutions women had created. If women were to breakthis cycle, they neededthe vote and accessto public office itself.Addamsbecamethe centerpieceof the Progressive party's drivein 1912 to attracta femaleconstituency. All of the main playersin the final act of the suffragedramawere shapedby the partisan battles of the precedingdecades. Carrie Chapman Catt told her followersthat "'the only way to get thingsdone in this countryis fromthe insideof politicalparties,"'while her feministcounterpartschose to call themselves the National Woman'sParty.But it was the Republicanparty that providedthe majority of "yes"votes on the AnthonyAmendmentin 1919; the Republicanstook creditfor the suffragevictoryand claimedin their 1920 platform that women were finallywelcomedinto "full participationin the affairsof government. Gustafsonshows that Republicansviewed female voters primarilyas campaignersand that, despitethe successof pioneeringpoliticianssuch asJeanetteRankinof Montana,resistanceto femaleoffice-holdingprovedresilient within party culture. Gustafsonwould have tappeda richvein of informationon female politiciansif she had examinedappointmentsto the massivePostOffice Department. Thousandsof women servedas postmastersin the late nineteenthcentury,and their stories would haveenrichedGustafson'sbook.
December 2002
Gustafson astutely asserts that, because Americansdo not know the historyof the female presencein the world of electoralpolitics,we continueto view "thepoliticalwoman as an awkward,illegitimate,or misbegotten phenomenon." Such works as Gustafson's should serveto counterthe timewornnotion that the femalepartisanis, by definition,encroachingon male terrain. ElizabethR. Varon Wellesley College Massachusetts Wellesley, White Women's Rights:The Racial Originsof Feminism in the United States. By Louise Michele Newman. (New York:Oxford UniversityPress,1999. x, 261 pp. Cloth, $52.00, ISBN 0-19-508692-9. Paper,$19.95, ISBN 019-512466-9.) Louise Michele Newman's White Women's Rightsis a compellinginvestigationof how racial questionsinformedthe creationof white feminist thought in the United States. The foundationof earlywhite women'srightsactivismwas evolutionism,which allowedwhite women to cast themselvesin the unique role of "civilizers"of "primitive"peoples. Through
assimilation,Americanization, and the American imperialistmission,white women sought to domesticate"primitive" women in the image of white womanhood,even as they were rejectingsuch idealsfor themselves.Newman concludes that the positioning of white women as superiorcivilizersof others who were also engagedin a battlewith patriarchy still hasan impacton women'srightsdiscourse today. Newmanbeginsherstudywith the storyof SusanB. Anthony'srefusalpubliclyto support FrederickDouglass'smarriageto Helen Pitts,a white woman. Anthony arguedin 1884 that she had "butone question,thatof equalitybetween the sexes."In the conclusion to her book, Newman relatesthat, in the midst of the 0. J. Simpsontrial,TammyBruce,headof the Los Angeles National Organizationfor Women
(NOW),
stated that the association was
not there "to teach our childrenabout race; what we haveto teachthem about is violence againstwomen."These two storiesare book-
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Book Reviews
ends to a historyof how raceand gendertensions influenced the development of feminism. Racism,Newman argues,"wasnot just an unfortunatesideshowin the performances of feministtheory." The emphasisof this study is on the years from 1870 to 1920, but Newman attemptsto demonstrate deeper roots and legacies of white women's racializedviews of equality. She traces the development of feminism through crucial debates about women in highereducationand industryand introduces key figures,both men and women, in those political and intellectualbattles. Like other scholarsof white women'srights,she demonstrates that debates about woman suffrage were about voting, but they were also about what womanhood meant and, for Newman, how whites thought about the future of the white race. Newman focuses on key white women whose public presencecontributedto a discourseof racializedtheoriesof genderoppression.So SusanB. Anthony leads eventually to May French-Sheldon,whose 1891 trip to Africahelped supporta new role for white women: the "refined white woman" who servedas a substitutefor "theaggressivewhite man"in the largerimperialistexercise. Newman discussesCharlottePerkinsGilman as a crucialtransitionalfigurein feminist discourse.Likeearlierwhite feminists,Gilman believedthat "primitive" people, here specificallyAfricanAmericans,shouldadoptthe very gender practices that she was rejecting for white women. Unlike those earlierwhite feminists, however, Gilman optimistically believed that sexual differencesfor whites, like racedifferencefor blacks,werea "negativevestige" of "primitive"pasts. Gilman'stheories and life, like those of so many of the women introducedin this study,were full of contradictions,andNewmandoes an excellentjob of exploringand explainingthe messiness,and sometimeseven the logic, of those contradictions. Those readersconcernedwith questions of women and peacewill find especiallyinteresting Newman's examination of how Gilman'schallengeto sexdifferencescouldcoexist with her belief in white women'snonviolent nature.I highlyrecommendthis book. I must say,however,that OxfordUniversityPresshas
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not served its author well. Tiny, tiny print makesthis a hardbook to read. MelanieGustafson University of Vermont Burlington,Vermont Bargainingwith the Statefrom Afar:American Citizenshipin TreatyPort China,1844-1942. By Eileen P. Scully. (New York: Columbia UniversityPress, 2001. xii, 306 pp. Cloth, $49.50, ISBN 0-231-12108-3. Paper,$19.50, ISBN0-231-12109-1.)
For decades,polemicistsand scholars(sometimes one and the same) have lambastedthe principle and practiceof "extraterritoriality" (extrality,in common parlance)that Western powersandJapanimposedon Chinathrough notorious"unequaltreaties."Underthis provision, foreign nationals resident in Chinese treatyports involvedin legaldisputeswere to be tried by tribunalsstaffedby diplomatsor judgesfrom theirown countries.Foreign,not Chinese,lawapplied.EileenP.Scullyhas reexamined both the theory and the practiceof extralityand in so doing confoundsnearlyevery assumption-including this reviewer'sabouthow the systemoperated. Applying both theoreticalanalysisabout the natureof citizenshipand rigorousresearch in diplomatic and legal archives,Scully exploresthe fluid natureof the relationshipbetween American "sojourners" in China and the UnitedStatesgovernment.Formost of the century under review, it was not a happy union. Although extrality effectively exempted U.S. nationalsfrom Chinese law, it also made them subject to supervision by Americanofficialsand laws they did not always approveof. Officialsin Washingtonand diplomatsin China seldomgloatedabout the special privilegeconferredon their countrymen living in the Middle Kingdom.More often than not, those officialsresentedthe costs, burdens,and complicationsof looking after their nationals.For their part, Americansojournersresentedand resistedwhat they perceivedas unwarranted interferenceby meddlesome diplomats. Extralitybegan in 1844 and lasted until 1942. Before1906, Scullyexplains,American
This content downloaded from 128.227.218.196 on Wed, 14 May 2014 13:09:31 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions