Path of Progress: One Man's Fight for Women's Rights

by Flora Beach Burlingame

Overview

It's the late 1800s, and John Ogilvie Stevenson, pastor of the Congregational Church in Waterloo, Iowa, believes women are equal to men intellectually, and superior to men morally and spiritually. During a sermon on temperance, wherein he advocates laws to shut down the saloons, he is struck with the irony that his audiences are composed mostly of women--that segment of the citizenry who cannot vote. Thus begins his campaign for women's suffrage. A large portion of the public believes a woman's place is in the home, that she has no business in politics, and probably isn't smart enough to vote.

Every two years the Iowa state legislature considers putting an amendment on the ballot for a public vote on the issue and time after time it doesn't get that far. The Reverend John Stevenson never gives up. Through the triumphs and tragedies of his own personal life, he is determined to forge the path to progress.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781947392410
Publisher:	Flora E Burlingame
Publication date:	02/15/2019
Pages:	446
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.99(d)

About the Author

Flora Beach Burlingame has been published in the free-lance magazine market, won awards for her short stories, and wrote for The Fresno Bee, a major California newspaper. In addition to features and a regular column, The Bee commissioned her to write a hundred years of history on three California counties for a special Centennial edition.
Inspired by her father, a history teacher, stories of the past dominate Flora's writing. In 2011, after countless hours of research, her historical novel Charcoal and Chalk, John Ogilvie and the Beginnings of Black Education in Texas was published. That story, based on an actual teach of the freedmen during Civil Ward Reconstruction, also led to Flora's current book, Path of Progress, the unique perspective of a man's fight for women's rights during the late eighteen hundreds and early twentieth century.
Flora has lived in various California locations and currently resides in beautiful, western Washington State.

Table of Contents

The coming of equal suffrage of equal rights and duties irrespective of sex, may be promoted or retarded but it cannot be stopped. As well try to thrust the dawning day back into the caverns of night. It is part of that age long movement now recognized and named evolution which is carrying the race to higher things. If my testimony or work can promote it in any degree, however small, I shall be satisfied.

John O. Stevenson, from his first editorial for The Woman's Standard, the official organ of the Iowa Woman Suffrage Association, September 1899 (later Iowa equal Suffrage Association).

Editorial Reviews

PATH OF PROGRESS shares the life of John Ogilvie Stevenson, a man from the 1800s, whose beliefs and values were before his time. As a champion of woman suffrage, the Reverend Stevenson’s written thoughts and quotes throughout the book add charm to the story. LORI OLIVER-TIERNEY, Author of TRUDGE--A MIDLIFE CRISIS ON THE JOHN MUIR TRAIL

Based on the life of the author’s great-grandfather, PATH OF PROGRESS personifies a national political movement through the life of one remarkable man. . . Here is history with a heart and a purpose that remains important, and still needed today. ANGELICA SHIRLEY CARPENTER, Curator Emerita Arne Nixon Center for the Study of Children’s LiteratureCalifornia State University, Fresno

Author of BORN CRIMINAL: MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE, RADICAL SUFFRAGIST

From the Publisher