Dorothy Wickenden

I stand by my statement that this is a charming book. The two young women went from one world to another, and not only coped but flourished. It was fascinating reading about the histories of the people and places involved. Dorothy and Rosamond are vivid correspondents, and I got a real sense of the culture shock they experienced going from a prosperous upper New York state life to a bare-necessities Colorado homesteading one. It was nifty to me that this all happened in the twentieth century, so I'd be reading about them taking sponge baths in the freezing cold every morning, and then about them getting a ride somewhere in someone's car, or calling someone on the phone. It was a mixture of historical and modern that I found appealing.… (mere)

I spied this on the shelves at Deadtime Stories and immediately knew this would be perfect for my buddy-read project with my dad and he agreed -- especially after our project on reading the Civil War left us hungry for more women's stories, and more Tubman in particular.

I really did enjoy this book, but at the same time, given the title and the cover, I expected a lot more about Harriet Tubman, and a lot more on the friendships between these women. At times it felt like a biography of two white women who happened to know Harriet Tubman. Why was there not more of Tubman? Is there more scare information? Or did Wickenden expect us to already be familiar? And for long stretches on each woman's life I would almost forget that they knew each other and be surprised when one of them showed up in another's story.

Also, there are way too many people with the same names or similar names and it got confusing. I would have appreciated the occasional reminder of which person we were talking about.

All that aside though, I found this to be a truly impressive work. I especially appreciated the depiction of the very intentional ways that those in power sundered the women's suffrage moment from the abolition movement after the war -- creating an environment for those suffragettes whose abolition work was more rooted in pity than empathy/solidarity to lean into their white supremacist tendencies.

This also drove home just how much of history/life is relationship -- the people you are surrounded with, those you influence and those who influence you.

An excellent and accessible piece of the American story.… (mere)

The first half of this book really brought my rating down. The book starts with the two women arriving in Colorado and describes their first impressions. So far so good. I settled in for a good read. Then the author spent about 100 pages writing about their lives before they got to Colorado, establishing perhaps, the comforts and privilege to which they were accustomed. This takes up nearly half the book (please review the full title of the book if you're stumped as to why this bothers me enough to mention it twice), once you subtract all the pages of notes, acknowledgements, bibliography and index. And it was written in a meandering way which I found very distracting. She would be writing about an aspect of their lives, like the college they attended, and then veer suddenly into a long tangent describing the history of the school and the many famous people connected with it. She did this a lot. It did not make for a very smooth narrative, and not all of the tangents were interesting. Even when they were, the effect was still jarring. It makes me wonder how many people quit reading the book before the author switched to a more linear style of describing their time in Colorado.
It's too bad, because that last half of the book is the best part. I didn't get a good sense of their personalities and spirit until then. The description of their lives before Colorado had felt more like a list of events and activities. From this, I only got a vague impression of a couple of rich girls who pretty much did and got what they wanted. I didn't really see any heart to their story until I read about their time in Colorado. The second half of the book was much more interesting and inspiring; the narrative, assembled from a collection of letters, interviews, newspaper articles and legwork on the part of the author, was far more impressive.
I couldn't bring myself to give this more than 2 stars, but I do think the 2nd part is good enough that I'd still recommend it. I'm not a skimmer (I either read every word or I quit), but for you skimmers out there, I would advise skimming most of the first 100 or so pages.… (mere)