Melanie Beals Goan has produced a very fine history of the women's suffrage movement in Kentucky from the state's school suffrage campaign in the 1830s through the achievement of the federal amendment in 1920. Insightful and accessible, A Simple Justice includes both intriguing descriptions of key figures and incisive analysis of racial tensions.
~Anya Jabour, author of Sophonisba Breckinridge: Championing Women's Activism in Modern America
Melanie Goan's pioneering, accessible, and engaging account of Kentucky suffrage is meticulously researched. She unearthed a mix of traditional and progressive women whose relentless pursuit of the vote overcame personal and societal obstacles including those exacerbated by racism and discrimination, controversy and ridicule. Though the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920, Goan's final sentence is a charge still relevant today: to identify injustice, to resist apathy, and to correct it.
~Genie Potter, former director of Kentucky Commission on Women and author/editor of Kentucky Women
Finally, the little-known true story of how Kentucky women won the vote is written! Not only is it extremely entertaining it also inspires readers to continue to fight for equality for women today.
~Marsha Weinstein, former executive director for the Kentucky Commission on Women
This book is literally years in the making. For a century, the story of women's struggle to earn the franchise in Kentucky has awaited a comprehensive and objective telling. In Melanie Beals Goan the movement finally has found its chronicler. A Simple Justice is indispensable reading.
~Thomas H. Appleton Jr., Foundation Professor of History at Eastern Kentucky University and coeditor of Kentucky Women: Their Lives and Times
A fast-paced, compelling story about women who persisted year after year to secure their right to vote. Goan shows us a world where religious conviction, regional discord, reform movements, racism, and many other forces shaped and reshaped Kentucky's citizen-activists. And while these savvy women helped steer a national conversation on political equality, they disagreed mightily about how to reach their goals. In Goan's sure hands, this isn't just a Kentucky story; it's an American story.
~Melissa McEuen, coeditor of Kentucky Women: Their Lives and Times
A Simple Justice: Kentucky Women Fight for the Vote is a welcome contribution to the literature on the women's suffrage movement in Kentucky and in the United States. Thoroughly researched and very readable, it is a study of the growth of suffrage sentiment and organizations in a state crucial to the development of a southern suffrage movement and the success of the Nineteenth Amendment. Goan includes new material on well-known Kentucky suffragists—the 'Big Three' comprised of Josephine Henry, Laura Clay, and Madeline McDowell Breckinridge—and on lesser-known women in the suffrage struggle including African American women.
~Marjorie Spruill, author of Divided We Stand: The Battle Over Women's Rights and Family Values That Polarized American Politics
Melanie Beals Goan provides an informative and compelling survey of the fight to achieve the right to vote and particularly how Kentucky played a key role. The story is one filled with interesting characters, hard work, and unexpected twists.
~H-Net Reviews
Melanie Beals Goan's new book is a thoroughly researched, lively narrative that reminds readers that state-level suffragists wielded the same political and organizational skills as their counterparts at the national level.
~Journal of Southern History
Goan... provides a unique perspective on the suffrage movement in the US by successfully arguing for Kentucky's centrality to that history.
~CHOICE
Goan leaves no doubt that Kentucky played a significant role in bringing our nation closer to the point where it always should have been—equality of gender.
~Steve Flairty, Kentucky Monthly
