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January 31, 2018 @ 8:00 pm

Johanna Neuman

Details

Date:
January 31, 2018
Time:
8:00 pm

Venue

Books & Books in Coral Gables
265 Aragon Ave
Coral Gables, FL 33134

Phone:
305.442.4408

New York City’s elite women who turned a feminist cause into a fashionable revolution

 In the early twentieth century over two hundred of New York’s most glamorous socialites joined the suffrage movement. Their names—Astor, Belmont, Rockefeller, Tiffany, Vanderbilt, Whitney and the like—carried enormous public value. These women were the media darlings of their day because of the extravagance of their costume balls and the opulence of the French couture clothes, and they leveraged their social celebrity for political power, turning women’s right to vote into a fashionable cause.
Although they were dismissed by critics as bored socialites “trying on suffrage as they might the latest couture designs from Paris,” these gilded suffragists were at the epicenter of the great reforms known collectively as the Progressive Era.  From championing education for women, to pursuing careers, and advocating for the end of marriage, these women were engaged with the swirl of change that swept through the streets of New York City.
Johanna Neuman restores these women to their rightful place in the story of women’s suffrage.  Understanding the need for popular approval for any social change, these socialites used their wealth, power, social connections and style to excite mainstream interest and to diffuse resistance to the cause.  In the end, as Neuman says, when change was in the air, these women helped push women’s suffrage over the finish line.

In conversation with DONNA SHALALA

Dr. Shalala has more than 40 years of experience as an accomplished scholar, teacher, and administrator.

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Dr. Shalala received her A.B. degree in history from Western College for Women. One of the country’s first Peace Corps Volunteers, she served in Iran from 1962 to 1964. She earned her Ph.D. degree from The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. She has held tenured professorships at Columbia University, the City University of New York (CUNY), and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  She served as President of Hunter College of the City University of New York from 1980 to 1987 and as Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1987 to 1993.

She served as President of the University of Miami from 2001 to 2015. During her tenure, UM has solidified its position among top U.S. research universities. The University’s two successful Momentum campaigns raised $3 billion in private support for the university’s endowment, academic and research programs and facilities. While on leave from the University of Miami, Dr. Shalala served as President of the Clinton Foundation from June 2015 to March 2017.

About the Author:

Johanna Neuman is a writer, historian and scholar in residence at American University in Washington, D.C. An award-winning journalist and former Nieman Fellow at Harvard, she covered the White House, the State Department and Congress for the Los Angeles Times and USA Today.