The Agitators: Three Friends Who Fought for Abolition and Women's Rights

by Dorothy Wickenden, Anne Twomey (Read by), Gabra Zackman (Read by), Heather Alicia Simms (Read by)

Overview

From the author of the New York Times bestseller Nothing Daunted, The Agitators chronicles the revolutionary activities of Harriet Tubman, Frances Seward, and Martha Wright: three unlikely collaborators in the quest for abolition and women’s rights.

In Auburn, New York, in the mid-nineteenth century, Martha Wright and Frances Seward, inspired by Harriet Tubman’s slave rescues in the dangerous territory of Eastern Maryland, opened their basement kitchens as stations on the Underground Railroad.

Tubman was an illiterate fugitive slave, Wright was a middle-class Quaker mother of seven, and Seward was the aristocratic wife and moral conscience of her husband, William H. Seward, who served as Lincoln’s Secretary of State. All three refused to abide by laws that denied them the rights granted to white men, and they supported each other as they worked to overturn slavery and achieve full citizenship for blacks and women.

The Agitators opens when Tubman is a slave and Wright and Seward are young women bridling against their traditional roles. It ends decades later, after Wright’s and Seward’s sons—and Tubman herself—have taken part in three of the defining engagements of the Civil War. Through the sardonic and anguished accounts of the protagonists, reconstructed from their letters, diaries, and public appearances, we see the most explosive debates of the time, and portraits of the men and women whose paths they crossed: Lincoln, Seward, Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, John Brown, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and others. Tubman, embraced by Seward and Wright and by the radical network of reformers in western New York State, settles in Auburn and spends the second half of her life there.

With extraordinarily compelling storytelling reminiscent of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s No Ordinary Time and David McCullough’s John Adams, The Agitators brings a vivid new perspective to the epic American stories of abolition, the Underground Railroad, women’s rights activism, and the Civil War.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781797101071
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster Audio
Publication date:	03/30/2021
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 6.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Dorothy Wickenden has been the executive editor of The New Yorker since January 1996. A Nieman Fellow at Harvard, she was the former national affairs editor at Newsweek and a longtime executive editor at The New Republic. Entering the fiction world, she is the author of Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West. She lives with her husband and children in Westchester, New York.

Table of Contents

Prologue xv

Part 1 Provocations (1821-1852)

1 A Nantucket Inheritance (1833-1843) 3

2 A Young Lady of Means (1824-1837) 19

3 Escape from Maryland (1822-1849) 37

4 The Freeman Trial (1846) 47

5 Dangerous Women (1848-1849) 55

6 Frances Goes to Washington (1848-1850) 65

7 Martha Speaks (1850-1852) 79

Part 2 Uprisings (1851-1860)

8 Frances Joins the Railroad (1851-1852) 89

9 Reading Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852-1853) 99

10 Harriet Tubman's Maryland Crusade (1851-1857) 109

11 The Race to the Territory (1854) 115

12 Bleeding Kansas, Bleeding Sumner (1854-1856) 121

13 Frances Sells Harriet a House (1857-1859) 129

14 Martha Leads (1854-1860) 141

15 General Tubman Goes to Boston (1858-1860) 149

16 The Agitators (1860) 159

Part 3 War (1861-1864)

17 "No Compromise" (1861) 169

18 A Nation on Fire (1861-1862) 183

19 "God's Ahead of Master Lincoln" (1862) 193

20 Battle Hymns (1862) 201

21 Harriet's War (1863) 215

22 Willy Wright at Gettysburg (March-July 1863) 231

23 A Mighty Army of Women (1863-1864) 239

24 Daughters and Sons (1864) 247

Part 4 Rights (1864-1875)

25 E Pluribus Unum (1864-1865) 263

26 Retribution (1865) 269

27 Civil Disobedience (1865) 283

28 Wrongs and Rights (1865-1875) 289

Epilogue 303

Acknowledgments 309

Notes 313

Selected Bibliography 353

Image Credits 359

Index 361

Reading Group Guide

This reading group guide for The Agitators includes an introduction, discussion questions, and ideas for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.

Introduction

Dorothy Wickenden, the New York Times bestselling author of Nothing Daunted, once again brings historical figures vividly to life in The Agitators, a riveting dive into the lives of three unlikely collaborators in the quest for abolition and women’s rights. By taking readers through the lives of these women—Harriet Tubman, Frances Seward, and Martha Wright—Wickenden offers an unusual and highly intimate perspective on the classic American stories of abolition, the underground railroad, women’s rights activism, and the Civil War.

Topics & Questions for Discussion

1. Discuss the book’s epigraph. How does this quote prepare you for the text? In what way does it resonate with current events?

2. The prologue and epilogue bookend the text with vivid descriptions of Fort Hill Cemetery today. What is the value of beginning and ending the book in this way? What effect does this have on your reading experience?

3. The first three chapters establish the very different backgrounds of Martha, Frances, and Harriet and the time in which they lived. What is your sense of their personalities and how they changed over time?

4. In chapter 4, Frances’s husband, Henry, makes the extraordinarily controversial decision to defend William Freeman, the twenty-three-year-old Black man who confessed to murdering four members of a white family. This is one of the first uses of the insanity defense, which is based on the belief that a person who is unable to distinguish right from wrong should not be criminally charged because they cannot take moral responsibility for their crime. Henry’s father-in-law, a county judge, thought his defense of Freeman would end his political career. Why was Frances so supportive of his choice?

5. In chapter 5, Martha overhears a party guest calling her “a very dangerous woman” because of her social activism and her friendship with Frederick Douglass. Consider what it meant to be a “dangerous woman” in Martha’s time and place. Who, or what, is being threatened by Martha’s behavior? Is there a modern-day equivalent of the term “dangerous woman?”

6. Discuss these two quotes from chapter 13 and how they have “aged” since their initial utterance: “The United States government ‘was made by white men for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever.’” —Senator Stephen A. Douglas. “I know, and you know, that a revolution has begun. I know, and all the world knows, that revolutions never go backward.” —Senator William Henry Seward

7. Each of these women was bold, principled, and intent on changing the world. They express their idealism in different ways. Discuss the avenues and methods each used to try and affect change.

8. At the end of chapter 13, Henry and the British intellectual Harriet Martineau discuss slavery, “the great American question.” What might you consider today’s “great American question”?

9. Harriet Tubman and her companions felt guided by their religious faith in pursuit of their activism, as did many reformers of the time, which often aided the progress of their causes. How was the political expression of evangelical thought different from how it is manifested today?

10. Harriet was an extraordinary orator and storyteller who, as the author says in chapter 15, knew how to play to “her audiences’ enthusiasm for hair-raising first-person accounts of slavery and escape.” What role does storytelling play throughout the book and in activism?

11. Throughout the book, we see Martha’s roles as activist and mother intersect. In chapter 14, “Martha Leads,” we see this manifest in conflict with her daughter Ellen, who, according to the author, was “overwhelmed by self-doubt” and, “to Martha’s dismay,” was “more interested in her succession of suitors than in her studies.” How does Martha’s career as an activist seem to affect her daughter’s development? What do you think of Martha’s early reservations about becoming a leader and her own doubts about her capabilities? Do you see this conflict present in modern-day mother-daughter relationships?

12. Discuss the interplay of women’s rights and anti-slavery activism throughout the book. The abolitionist and women’s rights movement were aligned through much of the mid-nineteenth century. The movement split in the late 1860s over priorities—some women insisting that the fight for Black male suffrage take precedence over the fight for women’s rights, while Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony broke away to fight solely for the women’s vote. In what ways have the conflicts of this period extended to our own?

13. Think about the husbands of Martha, Frances, and Harriet. How did they help or hinder their wives in their sociopolitical goals? What impact did these relationships have on the women in their decision-making processes? How did the women shape the thinking and actions of their husbands?

14. Reflect on the Henry’s long anti-slavery career, the battle between Frances and Henry in the early 1860s about immediate emancipation, and the ultimate assassination attempt on Henry and two of their sons. Martha blames Henry for Frances’s unhappiness and, the author writes, finds him “hungrier for power than for principle.” What is your final assessment of Henry and of the difficulties of their marriage?

15. Letters, photos, and portraits appear throughout the book as chapter and section openers. What do these add to your reading experience? How does it feel to have faces and handwriting to put to these historical figures?

16. Consider the impact that the actions of the activists in the book may have had directly on your own life. Can you conjure an example of how their efforts in the movements benefited you personally?

Enhance Your Book Club

1. Check the National Register of Historic Places for historical sites near you. See what you can learn about your local history!

2. Correspond with your friends through handwritten letters about the book. This way, you might get a sense of what it was like to hold passionate discussions through snail mail as the women in the text did.

3. Brainstorm ways you might contribute to social activism today. Research causes that you are passionate about and take inspiration from Martha, Frances, and Harriet. Is there a local group you can participate in or online resources available in your area?

Editorial Reviews

★ 02/01/2021

New Yorker executive editor Wickenden (Nothing Daunted) expertly weaves together the biographies of “co-conspirators and intimate friends” Harriet Tubman, Martha Wright, and Frances Seward in this novelistic history. When Wright, the younger sister of abolitionist Lucretia Mott, and Seward, the wife of U.S. senator and secretary of state William Henry Seward, got to know Tubman in the early 1850s, they were already “in the process of transforming themselves from conventional homemakers into insurgents.” Wright and Seward hosted fugitive slaves on the Underground Railroad and helped Tubman to build and sustain a free Black community in Auburn, N.Y., where all three women lived from 1857 on. Wickenden details the links between the suffragist and abolitionist movements in the U.S., noting that women like Seward and Wright, by virtue of being in the private sphere, had a moral clarity about the evil of slavery that male politicians lacked, and describes how post-Civil War tensions over whether Black men or white women should get the vote first divided the suffragist movement. Through extensive research and fluid writing, Wickenden rescues Wright and Seward from obscurity and provides a new perspective on Tubman’s life and work. This is an essential addition to the history of American progressivism. Agent: Amanda Urban, ICM Partners. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for The Agitators

An LA Times Best Book of the Year

"Wickenden, executive editor of the New Yorker, does an almost perfect job of braiding together the stories of three very different women."
—Los Angeles Times

"The Agitators is an impressive narrative of three women who were at the center of a burgeoning movement. Their trailblazing path is captured and related deftly by the author, their triumphs and tragedies narrated emphatically for a modern audience. All three women lived and breathed for the freedom of all men and women, selflessly giving as much as they were capable. An A+ historical narrative."
—San Francisco Book Review

"Wickenden does a brilliant job of weaving all the complicated threads together, telling a compelling story that we thought we knew well. This is history at its best: personal, powerful, and inspiring.”
—Marissa Moss, New York Journal of Books

"An epic and intimate history. . . . Wickenden's commitment to keeping her trio in the frame and in focus showcases prodigious narrative control. The Agitators is a masterpiece, not least, of structure. . . . . Entwining these three asymmetrical lives as deftly as Wickenden does proves illuminating."
—Jane Kamensky, New York Times Book Review

"Absorbing and richly rewarding . . . . [Wickenden] traces the Auburn women's lives with intelligence, compassion, and verve . . . [and her] assessment of the era leading up to the Civil War will resonate with readers in our own fractious era."
—Melanie Kirkpatrick, Wall Street Journal

"Riveting. . . . [Wickenden] weaves [these] stories together with gravity and humor in a narrative so tightly knit it reads like accomplished literary fiction. . . . "The Agitators" will move you, and it will make you sad. So much of what convulsed the country in the 19th century remains with us: mob violence, virulent racism and an appalling disregard for human dignity. But there's another message: People of fierce and heartfelt principles can bend history to their will. If you're an agitator, even a quiet one, read this book."
—Mary Ann Gwinn, The Star Tribune

"New Yorker executive editor Wickenden (Nothing Daunted) expertly weaves together the biographies of “co-conspirators and intimate friends” Harriet Tubman, Martha Wright, and Frances Seward in this novelistic history... Through extensive research and fluid writing, Wickenden rescues Wright and Seward from obscurity and provides a new perspective on Tubman’s life and work. This is an essential addition to the history of American progressivism."
—Publishers Weekly, starred review

"She brings a reporter’s eye for detail to this complex history... [and] invites readers to take a closer look at the path of American progress and the women who guided it."
—Carla Jean Whitley, BookPage

"Told with literary flare, Dorothy Wickenden's The Agitators sheds some much-needed light on the lives and passions of a small circle of abolitionists: Harriet Tubman, Martha Wright, and Frances Seward."
—Bustle

"New Yorker executive editor Wickenden brings three fascinating women to life in rich, humanizing detail ... Wickenden pulls this history out of the dry dustiness of fact and adds color and warmth to its retelling. The women of our shared past deserve more treatments like this."
—Booklist

“An original portrait of three original women who muscled aside expectations, obligations, and neighborhood gossip for the sake of their consciences. Dorothy Wickenden not only resurrects these unlikely agitators but plunges us deep into their volatile world, with a supporting cast that includes Julia Ward Howe, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Abraham Lincoln. This is rich and rousing history, crisply and intimately rendered, its moral collisions vivid and vital on the page.“
—Stacy Schiff, author of Cleopatra and The Witches

“The Agitators tells the story of America before the Civil War through the lives of three women who advocated for the abolition of slavery and women’s rights as the country split apart. Harriet Tubman, Martha Coffin Wright and Frances A. Seward are the examples we need right now—another time of divisiveness and dissension over our nation’s purpose ‘to form a more perfect union.’”
—Hillary Clinton

"This is an extraordinary peek into the lives of three women who courageously pushed past the tight worlds that confined them to create the bones and muscle of the freedom movements that we now know. That they walked in a land of giants – Lincoln, Lee, John Brown – is no surprise. That they knew one another, were giants themselves, and accorded second class status is no surprise either. The treat is the refreshing decency, skillful ease, and extraordinary skill with which their stories are intertwined, showing how each pressed against the seams of imprisonment with such force and resilience that their collective song continues to resonate today. That is why Dorothy Wickenden is one of the deans of our game."
—James McBride

“When writing about the Civil War era, focus is everything: how it is seen depends entirely on who is seeing it. In The Agitators, Dorothy Wickenden has fortunately chosen three brilliantly engaging characters. The result is unexpected, original, and profoundly illuminating.”
—S.C. Gwynne, author of Hymns of the Republic and Rebel Yell

"Inspiring and important – and a rousing good read – The Agitators reminds us how, even in the darkest of times, there is light. And when a few fierce women join forces against that darkness, they can win."
—Jeannette Walls, author of The Glass Castle

"As a revolutionary, Harriet Tubman made many allies, none more important than her Auburn, New York, neighbors Martha Wright and Frances Seward. Wright, a middle-class Quaker, and Seward, the wealthy wife of a famous statesman, learned their activism from the abolition and women's rights movements that surrounded them, as well as from Tubman's incomparable example. This is a unique, lyrically written, exhaustively researched, triple biography of epic proportions about three women, mothers and organizers all, woven into a single narrative about their activist struggles before and during the Civil War. Their lives burst from these pages, as do the crusades that began the liberation of African Americans and women across the nineteenth century. Wickenden possesses a novelist's eye for detail and a historian's passion for story, in a book about women with no formal political rights who changed their world."
—David W. Blight, Yale University, author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom

"Dorothy Wickenden seamlessly weaves together the lives of her protagonists with the times that influenced them, and that they in turn profoundly affected. Vivid, enlightening, and engrossing, here is the story of three women who are fixtures of history but whose relevance to the present could scarcely be more apparent."
—Jelani Cobb, Professor at the Columbia School of Journalism and the author of The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress

Praise for Nothing Daunted

"A quintessentially American tale... An enchanting family memoir... the narrative positively glimmers."
—The Washington Post

"An exquisite book."
—The Boston Globe

“A superb, stirring book. Through the eyes of two spirited and resourceful women from the civilized East, Wickenden makes the story of the American West engaging and personal. A delight to read.”
—Susan Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief

“An enchanting family memoir...A brilliant gem of Americana.”
—Washington Post Book World

“Lovingly pieced together.”
—Los Angeles Times

“A rich narrative... Nothing Daunted is an extraordinary book.”
—Denver Post

“Dorothy Wickenden’s recounting of her grandmother Dorothy Woodruff’s treacherous cross-country journey is as charming as it is rugged... This is Little House on the Prairie in petticoats, and it is enchanting.”
—NPR

“A great story, with a richly appealing character at the center...a tale of the triumph of determination over adversity...wonderfully American”
—Slate

“Dorothy Woodruff and Rosamond Underwood come alive in Nothing Daunted, Dorothy Wickenden’s fascinating slice of social history... Their story is blessed with a cast of supporting characters that novelists would envy.”
—USA Today

“Wickenden is a lucky and talented writer... Both women spring to life in this wonderful book.”
—Houston Chronicle

From the Publisher

★ 04/01/2021

With this latest work, journalist and author Wickenden (Nothing Daunted) follows the lives of three friends and heroes of the women's rights and abolitionist movements, and describes the ways they impacted both causes. Wickenden effectively argues that these two movements, which were gathering steam during the mid-1800s, did not exist independently of one another; rather, they were intertwined. The author's accessible, engaging writing highlights the life of Frances Seward (1805–65), whose husband William H. Seward, secretary of state to Abraham Lincoln, is also given careful consideration. Along with the Sewards, the book also chronicles the lives of close friends Martha Coffin Wright, a feminist and abolitionist, and Harriet Tubman, who was born enslaved in Maryland and left a lasting legacy after escaping slavery and establishing the Underground Railroad. The author effectively places Seward, Wright, and Tubman in historical context. Accounts of Tubman's life in the Underground Railroad and as a scout in the Union army shine particularly brightly, narrated like the daring exploits they were. VERDICT Filling a gap in the telling of women's and abolitionist history, this highly readable book gives these three women their due. Wickenden's deft touch will allow this book to appeal to a wide audience.—Stacy Shaw, Denver

Library Journal

Narrators Heather Alicia Simms, Anne Twomey, and Gabra Zackman harmonize to memorable effect in Dorothy Wickenden’s remarkable examination of three friends who led twin battles for abolition and women’s rights in nineteenth-century America. Simms gives a witty and rousing rendition of Harriet Tubman, freedom fighter extraordinaire; Twomey is gentle and steely as Francis Seward, the publicly conventional and privately radical wife of Secretary of State William H. Seward; and Gabra Zackman is energized and clear as Martha Wright, uncompromising Quaker mother of seven. Their surprising and inspiring lives are woven together with those of such luminaries as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frederick Douglass, and Abraham Lincoln, for between them, they knew everyone. Informative, entertaining, unnerving, and stirring—listen and then share this book with all your friends. A.C.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

APRIL 2021 - AudioFile

Narrators Heather Alicia Simms, Anne Twomey, and Gabra Zackman harmonize to memorable effect in Dorothy Wickenden’s remarkable examination of three friends who led twin battles for abolition and women’s rights in nineteenth-century America. Simms gives a witty and rousing rendition of Harriet Tubman, freedom fighter extraordinaire; Twomey is gentle and steely as Francis Seward, the publicly conventional and privately radical wife of Secretary of State William H. Seward; and Gabra Zackman is energized and clear as Martha Wright, uncompromising Quaker mother of seven. Their surprising and inspiring lives are woven together with those of such luminaries as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frederick Douglass, and Abraham Lincoln, for between them, they knew everyone. Informative, entertaining, unnerving, and stirring—listen and then share this book with all your friends. A.C.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

APRIL 2021 - AudioFile

2021-01-06
The executive editor of the New Yorkertells the storiesof three female friends who defied the social conventions of their day to fight for women's rights and abolition.

Harriet Tubman, Martha Coffin Wright, and Frances A. Seward made history as females who fought against the subjection of women and slaves in the 19th century. Wickenden braids together the intersecting threads of their lives and accomplishments into a highly readable, instructive historical narrative. The daughter of Nantucket Quakers who opposed slavery and sister of early feminist Lucretia Mott, Wright came to know Seward in 1839 while residing in Auburn, New York. Although Seward lived a life of privilege, the two women bonded over many shared interests, including social reform and an “antipathy to pretentiousness.” Wright soon became involved in the abolitionist movement and made her home “a station on the underground railroad.” In 1849, Tubman escaped from her master in Maryland and made her way to Philadelphia. There, she met Mott, who actively “preached against slavery and lambasted slavers and clergymen for citing the Bible to justify their sins.” Wickenden convincingly speculates that Mott introduced Tubman to both Wright and Seward in the late 1840s. The three quickly formed friendships that united them across race and class in a common fight against White patriarchal oppression. The author sets their stories against a tumultuous backdrop of events—e.g., the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 and the "bleeding" Kansas massacres of the 1850s—that not only defined the revolutionary spirit of the era, but also caused divisions that still haunt the American soul today. Yet in the strength of the bonds forged among Wright, Seward, and Tubman, Wickenden offers hope for a healing of old wounds and a future where "the dignity and equality of all Americans" is an authentic reality.

A well-researched, sharp portrait of the “protagonists in an inside-out story about the second American revolution."

Kirkus Reviews