The Perfect 36 Tennessee Delivers Woman Suffrage

THE PERFECT 36:

Tennessee Delivers Woman Suffrage

The most complete account of Tennessee's pivotal role in the passage of the 19th Amendment

Political History

by Carol Lynn Yellin and Janann Sherman
Edited by Ilene Jones-Cornwell
1st Edition
Iris Press
160 pages
$24.95
Published in 1998
ISBN 0-916078-48-5

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Table of Contents:

Forewords by Tennessee Governor Don and Martha Sundquist, Shelby County, Tennessee Mayor Jim Rout, and Tennessee State Senator Steve Cohen
It Happened in Nashville
The Perfect 36 - The Exhibit
The Long Road to Nashville
Quote . . . Unquote
Pioneers, O Pioneers
The Debate Heats Up: The Suffs and the Antis
Women of Color, Women of Vision, Women of Courage
The Final Showdown, Tennessee, 1920
A Suffrage Sampler
Tennessee's Forgotten Heroes: The Gallant Few
Tennessee's Forgotten Heroines: A Suffrage Roll of Honor
Bibliography
Acknowledgments

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"The Perfect 36 is perfect....One of the outstanding accomplishments of the volume is that, in addition to the voluminous record it presents of the suffrage movement and its historic antecedents, it also includes fair and reasonably complete accounts of the arguments made by the opponents of suffrage."

. . . Jackson Baker, The Memphis Flyer, 6/24/98

Yellin and Sherman bring to life the struggle of suffragists to earn women the right to vote which culminated with the final vote needed for ratification in the Tennessee legislature. The Perfect 36 gives voice to those who were for and against the right of women to vote with a richly illustrated volume.

The authors provide a great deal of writings of those who were involved in this important movement along with pictures and cartoons to give a vivid sense of what it was like to win enfranchisement.

The Perfect 36 is an important resource for anyone interested in how women and men earned the right for women to fully participate in the democratic process of the United States.

What others have said about The Perfect 36

" I love the Tennessee book...it's well written, well documented, fascinating, beautiful, solid, fun (great cartoons and short quotes...) it's scholarly and educational.... it's such a contribution to the education of people."

– Ruth Mandel, Director
Eagleton Institute of Politics
Rutgers University

"The Perfect 36 is a splendid documentation of the efforts of countless women and men in Tennessee, whose struggles ensured ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. It is a highly readable and useful text that is appropriate for undergraduate courses and a wide range of fields – history, women's studies, political science, sociology, and American studies. The accompanying video brings home for students all that was at stake in this historic vote."

– Barbara Ellen Smith, Ph,D.
Former Director of Women Studies
Center for Research on Women
University of Memphis

Biography of Authors

Dr. Janann Sherman, Chair of the History Department at the University of Memphis, holds a Ph.D. in American History from Rutgers University. She is the author of No Place for a Woman: A Life of Senator Margaret Chase Smith, and contributing author to The Home-Front War: World War II and American Society; Gender and Policymaking: Studies of Women in Office; The Impact of Women on American Politics; The Journal of Military History and The Oxford Companion to United States History.

Former Memphian Dr. Nancy Hardt (left), who previously worked in Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's office, shared Dr. Sherman's book, No Place for a Woman: A Life of Senator Margaret Chase Smith, with the Speaker, who is holding the book.

Carol Lynn Yellin (1920-1999), a former Associate Editor of Reader's Digest and a Special Projects Editor of Reader's Digest Condensed Books, is a native Oklahoman with degrees in History and Journalism from Northwestern University. She is the co-author of the books: Bound for Freedom about resistance to school integration, and The Forgotten Woman, the story of Kasturba Ghandi, wife of Mahatma Ghandi. Her articles have appeared in Harpers, Vogue, Redbook, and American Heritage.