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A 2001 Choice Magazine "Outstanding Academic Book"

Mrs. Stanton's Bible traces the impact of Elizabeth Cady Stanton's religious dissent on the suffrage movement at the turn of the century and presents the first book-length reading of her radical text, the Woman's Bible. Stanton is best remembered for organizing the Seneca Falls convention at which she first called for women's right to vote. Yet she spent the last two decades of her life working for another cause: women's liberation from religious oppression. Stanton came to believe that political enfranchisement was meaningless without the systematic dismantling of the church's stifling authority over women's lives.

In 1895, she collaboratively authored this biblical exegesis, just as the women's movement was becoming more conservative. Stanton found herself arguing not only against male clergy members but also against devout female suffragists. Kathi Kern demonstrates that the Woman's Bible itself played a fundamental role in the movement's new conservatism because it sparked Stanton's censure and the elimination of her fellow radicals from the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Mrs. Stanton's Bible dramatically portrays this crucial chapter of women's history and facilitates the understanding of one of the movement's most controversial texts.

Reviews

"In 1895, Elizabeth Cady Stanton shocked the nation by releasing the Women's Bible, a commentary on key biblical passages that challenged the notion of women's subordination in any sphere, particularly the church. Yet this incident has been surprisingly understudied by religion scholars and feminists...Kern's book about the Women's Bible is incisive, well written and long overdue."--Publishers Weekly, January 2001

"Well documented with ample references, this book might not sway readers, but the extensive evidence and thoughtful analysis are worth engaging."--Library Journal, February 2001

"Kathi Kern's new book is more than a study of Elizabeth Cady Stanton's The Woman's Bible. It is the first serious examination of the thought of this towering figure in the history of feminist theory...Kern brings the tools of intellectual history to this complex legacy and fully appreciates the historical contradictions involved...Overall, this book is an impressive achievement."--Ellen Carol DuBois, UCLA. American Historical Review, February 2002

"This tightly written and well-researched book uncovers in all their complexity the regional, national, and international dynamics of the American women's movement, as well as the diversity of beliefs that facilitated those connections but also contributed to discord."--Lori Williamson, University of Wolverhampton. History, Fall 2001

"Kern demonstrates that the Women's Bible itself played a fundamental role in the movement's new conservatism because it sparked Stanton's censure and the elimination of her fellow radicals from the national American Woman Suffrage Association. Mrs. Stanton's Bible dramatically portrays this crucial chapter of women's history and facilitates the understanding of one of the movement's most controversial texts."--Allegheny Magazine,Fall/Winter 2001

"Kern's enlightening and detailed analysis of Elizabeth Cady Stanton's Woman's Bible fills a void in the historiography surrounding the women's suffrage movement...Persons with a strong interest in American women's religious history will want to add this book to their personal library."--Elizabeth Hinson-Hasty, St. Andrews Presbyterian College. Journal of Scripture & Theology, January 2002

"! ! ! ! Exceptional"--Today's Books, October 2001

"Kern's study of the Woman's Bible provides a fascinating account of Elizabeth Cady Stanton's later years, and a needed analysis of woman suffrage in the Gilded Age...Kern's excellent study demonstrates the importance of the Woman's Bible to the history of woman suffrage and illuminates Stanton's feminism, including its most controversial component, racism."--Choice, December 2001, Vol. 39. No.4

"Author Kern skillfully presents all the different viewpoints and personalities in this struggle over conflicting beliefs and ideals. She never oversimplifies or caricatures, but carefully explains just how much was at stake in this important late-nineteenth-century battle over the Bible."--Carolyn DeSwarte Gifford, Northwestern University. Register of the Kentucky Historical Society

"Kathi Kern's analysis in Mrs. Stanton's Bible offers a wealth of additional historical information on the era in which these works appeared and were summarily censored in ignorance, fear and outrage. . . . Kern does an excellent job of untangling the internal politics and generational transition of the suffrage movement at its most critical juncture. . ."—Deborah Louis, Feminist Collections, Winter 2003, vol. 24, no. 2
"This very important book promises a much needed corrective to previous work portraying Elizabeth Cady Stanton as a commited secularist. Through responsible research and a fresh, original perspective, Kathi Kern provides us access to a substantial feminist critique of Christianity by a towering nineteenth-century intellectual."--Ann Braude, Harvard Divinity School

"In Mrs. Stanton's Bible, Kathi Kern does not back away from the embarassing evidence of Elizabeth Stanton's racist and classist prejudices but demonstrates how her subject's religious views helped shape those values. This masterful and timely book will remedy significant deficiencies in our historical knowledge."--John R. McKivigan, Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis

About the Author

Kathi Kern is Associate Professor of History at the University of Kentucky.

Table of Contents (.pdf)

History / U.S. & Canada
Gender Studies
Religion
American Studies