The Voice of Liberty

South Dakota Historical Society Press
(pub. 9.15.2020) 

36 pages

A True Tale with

A Cherry On Top   

A uthor: 
Angelica Shirley Carpenter
       and illustrator:   

Edwin Fotheringham

 
C haracters: Matilda Joslyn Gage, Lillie Devereux Blake, Katherine Devereux Blake

O verview: 

       

"In 1886, the Statue of Liberty came to America. If Liberty had been a real woman, she would have had no voice in her new country. She could not vote or run for office. The men in charge of unveiling the statue in New York Harbor even declared that women could not set foot on the island during the welcoming ceremony.

That did not stop New York suffragists Matilda Joslyn Gage, Lillie Devereux Blake, and Katherine Devereux Blake. They wanted women to have the liberty to vote and participate in government. They were determined to give the new statue a voice. But, first, they had to find a boat. Matilda, Lillie, and Katie organized hundreds of people and sailed a cattle barge to the front of the day's ceremony, making news and raising their voices for LIBERTY."

T antalizing taste: 

     "The passengers kept chanting as the John Lenox churned forward.

     The women could hardly believe their luck when the barge came to anchor in the front row. It floated between two war ships directly under the statue. Lillie, Katie, and Matilda could see the huge copper figure above them in the rain. An enormous French flag hid her face."

And something more: Angelica Shirley Carpenter's Author's Note explains that this "story is a fictional retelling of actual events. The dialogue either comes directly from or is inspired by similar statements in the writings of Lillie Devereux Blake and Matilda Joslyn Gage, from newspaper stories of the time, and from Katherine Devereux Blake's eyewitness accounts of the events in her book Champion of Women: The  Life of Lillie Devereux Blake."
     Angelica kindly shared with me the inspiration for writing this book: "I learned about The Voice of Liberty incident while writing my 2018 full-length bio of Matilda, Born Criminal: Matilda Joslyn Gage, Radical Suffragist. After finishing that book, I somehow still had that smelly cattle barge, and those well-dressed women, stuck in my mind. It was so much fun to see Edwin Fotheringham's illustrations of what I imagined. And also his illustrations of things I never imagined, like the Statue with a gag in her mouth."

     A book that reminds us, the day before the Presidential election, how valuable the right to vote is -- for each and every one of us!  Vote!