Summer Suffragists: Woman Suffrage Activists in Scituate, Massachusetts

by Lyle Nyberg, Janet Paraschos (Editor), Alix Stuart (Editor)

Overview

A surprising number of nationally recognized suffragist leaders spent summers in seaside Scituate, Massachusetts. This book creates a revealing portrait of their lives in what was arguably the nation's summer suffragist capital, using original research and previously unpublished records. It also offers a highly readable account of their personal and activist lives in Boston, New York, Washington, and elsewhere, fighting for women's right to vote. It is both local and national history, still relevant to our times, when the right to vote and the right to protest are under assault.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781735474526
Publisher:	Lyle Nyberg
Publication date:	11/03/2020
Pages:	284
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.69(d)

About the Author

Lyle Nyberg graduated from Dartmouth College and Boston University School of Law. Like Will Irwin (featured in the book), he met and married a summer resident of Scituate, and came to love the town, and to write of the town's history. Lyle retired to Scituate after a career as a corporate lawyer. He is an independent scholar and historian.

He is a member of the Scituate Historical Society and the Massachusetts Historical Society.

Lyle has spent years researching, writing, and speaking about the history of Scituate. He has documented more than 50 historic buildings, published in the state's online MACRIS database. His work includes sites in Boston that were nationally important for women's suffrage. In January 2020, he was a panelist for a League of Women Voters program on women's suffrage.

Reach him at [e-mail], or www.lylenyberg.com.

Table of Contents

Contents

CONTENTS iii

FOREWORD v

PREFACE vii

INTRODUCTION 1

Scituate 3

The Suffragist Connections 6

The Suffrage Summer Capital? 8

1 THE WOMAN SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT 11

2 INEZ HAYNES IRWIN & WILL IRWIN 27

3 CARO MOORE & MARY MOORE FORREST 57

4 MEYER BLOOMFIELD 65

5 BEATRICE FORBES-ROBERTSON HALE & SWINBURNE HALE 77

Early Years and Suffrage Work 78

Hale Family in Scituate, An Overview 86

Beatrice Arrival in Scituate 87

Touring America, 1914-1919 92

Later Times in Scituate 106

Marital Problems 115

Swinburne's Other Women 124

Swinburne and Marie, Divorce, and Demons 129

Epilogue 133

6 THE GLADES 137

7 JUDITH WINSOR SMITH & SYLVANUS SMITH 141

8 WOMEN VOTE 179

NOTES ON SOURCES 193

NOTES 197

INDEX 263

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 271

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 273

Editorial Reviews

Mr. Nyberg has successfully brought to the forefront the Scituate suffragists

in a way that is both fascinating and enlightening for the reader.

- Foreword by David Ball, President, Scituate Historical Society

This is a splendid book. Its deep research, masterful language, and thoughtful

insights into an elite community's fascinating cadre of progressives, in turbulent

times much like our own, bring the women's suffrage movement to life.

- James B. Conroy, author of the prize-winning Lincoln's White House:

The People's House in Wartime, and other books on American history

Brings deep and unique knowledge of local history to bear on an important

American movement for social change. Eight generations of women, often

with men standing at their sides, campaigned for the essential right of all

citizens to vote. In this book, Lyle Nyberg contributes a deeper understanding

of the local roots of all activism.

- Dr. Johanna Neuman, historian, author of And Yet They Persisted:

How American Women Won the Right to Vote (2019) and Gilded Suffragists:

The New York Socialites Who Fought for Women's Right to Vote (2017)

​

By focusing on a surprising hotbed of a movement that was then called

"woman suffrage"-the coastal New England town of Scituate, Mass.-

author Lyle Nyberg helps flesh out the early years of a great adventure

story being celebrated in 2020's centennial of the 19th Amendment. He

explores this critical time in American history by mining a treasure trove

of original documents, including even intimate personal correspondence,

to bring to life the women and men who helped give birth to a sweeping

revolution in democracy. It is a powerful, most timely achievement.

-- Roy Harris, former Wall Street Journal reporter, and author of Pulitzer's Gold: A Century of Public Service Journalism (Columbia U. Press, 2016)

From the Publisher