The ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, which granted women the right to vote, was the result of a grueling, decades-long campaign that employed a wide range of strategies. As We the Women documents, the movement combined mainstream lobbying efforts with more radical, confrontational tactics. While some suffragists focused on state-by-state campaigns and polite petitioning, a new generation of activists, led by Alice Paul, adopted more militant approaches. O’Donnell details how these women, known as the “Silent Sentinels,” picketed the White House and endured arrests, imprisonment, and brutal force-feedings during hunger strikes. This context demonstrates the sacrifice required to achieve what the book calls “the single greatest act of mass enfranchisement in history” (197). The combination of these strategies ultimately created the political pressure that led to the amendment’s passage.

However, the victory of 1920 was incomplete, notoriously prioritizing only white women’s right to vote. The book critically examines the movement’s limitations, particularly its frequent exclusion of women of color. To gain support from Southern politicians, mainstream white suffrage organizations often sidelined Black activists. For instance, O’Donnell recounts how civil-rights leader Ida B. Wells was asked to march at the back of the 1913 suffrage parade in Washington, DC, a request she defied. As the text notes, even after the 19th Amendment was ratified, systemic barriers like poll taxes and literacy tests meant that “women of color were often excluded” from voting for decades (140). This important context reinforces the book’s central thesis that progress in America is an ongoing, imperfect process and that many of its “hidden heroes” had to continue their fight for true equality long after landmark victories were won.