Pioneering the Vote: The Untold Story of Suffragists in Utah and the West by Neylan McBaine: Book Review

Product Details

• Title: Pioneering the Vote: The Untold Story of Suffragists in Utah and the West
• Author:
  Neylan McBaine
• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Genre: Non-Fiction
• Publisher: Shadow Mountain (August 4, 2020)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1629727369

***I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy from the publisher. All opinions are my own***

Book Summary
Pioneering the Vote tells the remarkable, largely unknown story of the suffrage victories that happened in the American West. With the encouragement of their Eastern sisters, women from Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, and Utah organized into one group whose goal was to win the right to vote, state by state. This culminated in May of 1895 when 8,000 people--including East Coast suffragists Susan B. Anthony and Reverend Anna Howard Shaw--attended the Rocky Mountain Suffrage Convention in Salt Lake City, Utah. This book brings together the stories of those influential Western women.

My Review
This non-fiction book is a fantastic look at women's voting and suffragist history in Utah and the West. This book is full of information that I didn't know a lot about. At the beginning of the book, readers learn that the first American women to cast a ballot as an equal citizen to men was a Salt Lake City resident. It happened on Feb. 14, 1870, by a twenty-three-year-old school teacher, Seraph Young. That made me super excited that it was a school teacher who cast this first ballot. 2020 is the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment which gave women the right to vote. Pioneering the Vote tells the story of the gathering of 8,000 people from around the West who came to the Rocky Mountain Suffrage Convention. Emmeline B. Wells was Utah's leading Suffragist. I really enjoyed learning more about her life. I'd read before about Susan B. Anthony a very famous USA Suffragist, but in the book, readers learn about many women who brought about change to benefit all women back then and which has continued into today's world.

This book is a wonderful read for those who love history, and especially for women to appreciate the sacrifices that so many women made for all women in our country. I will definitely be reading more from this author and the causes that she supports.

Meet Author Neylan McBaine 

As CEO of the Better Days 2020 non-profit, which popularizes women's history through education, legislation and the arts, Neylan McBaine combines a Silicon Valley career in brand marketing with her experience in advocating for women.

Since co-founding Better Days 2020, Neylan has become a leader in speaking and writing about women's leadership and the U.S. suffrage movement, with a specific focus on Utah and the west's early role in that movement. She has developed a team of historians, educators and marketers that have changed the way Utahns view and understand women's history, leading to shifts in current perceptions of Utahns generally. As a TEDx presenter, columnist and writer, Neylan has been called a "change agent" and "uniquely important." She is also the founder of another non-profit, The Mormon Women Project, and the author of the best-selling "Women at Church: Magnifying LDS Women's Local Impact". Neylan is a graduate of Yale University, mother to three daughters, and lives in Salt Lake City.

Learn more about Neylan McBaine HERE: https://www.neylanmcbaine.com/ 

Listen to the TED Talk:

Reclaiming Utah's pioneering legacy of women's suffrage | Neylan McBaine | TEDxSaltLakeCity:

"Utah pioneers were on the leading edge of the women's suffrage movement, but their stories have been forgotten and buried. Neylan McBaine reminds us of Utah's trailblazing heritage and suggests it's time for Utah to reclaim its identity as a leader in women's advocacy."