Book Review: Suffrage Song: The Haunted History of Gender, Race and Voting Rights in the U.S. by Caitlin Cass

The saying “Those who don’t learn history are doomed to repeat it” gets thrown around in a lot of different situations and is tied to a lot of different movements. But do we ever stop and ask whose history we are supposed to learn from?

In the United States K-12 system, most students are learning some variation of “great person history” that only focuses on key figures. Or they are learning “top down history” that focuses on the winners first and then those who came after. In addition, these forms of history, especially in the U.S., have white, rich men at their core, with a few nods to people of color here and there, but is mostly centered from the lens of white supremacy and Euro-centric ideals.

So then when students are learning about the history of the suffragist movement which got white women the right to vote, and the civil rights movement, whose version of that history are we learning? This is exactly what artist, historian, and author Caitlin Cass interrogates in her new graphic novel, Suffrage Song: The Haunted History of Gender, Race and Voting Rights in the U.S.

Through historical research and fantastic illustrations, Cass takes an intersectional approach to the history of the women’s suffragist movement and the racist concessions that many of its leaders had to make in order to accomplish their goals. She then follows the fight for suffrage from its early leaders and the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 to the Civil Rights Era and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Cass is not shy to highlight the racist and unjust treatment that these early concessions paved the way for in more modern times. In these pages and through these stories, she looks to release and confront the “ghosts” that haunt this history and to fill in the silences that she can.

From a purely aesthetic viewpoint, this book it absolutely gorgeous. Even before you open the book, the cover calls to you with beautiful gold leaf, enticing fonts, era-appropriate colors, and wonderful illustrations. But once you open up Suffrage Song, Cass demonstrates her incredible range of artistic skill and attention to detail throughout its pages. The interior also includes four different foldouts that make the history bigger and really help highlight some important portions of this story. I also love that she color-coded the different eras of the women to add a visual component as you move through the different aspects of this history.

As a reader, I absolutely loved this book. As a women’s historian, I absolutely loved this book. As a professor who teaches Women in American Society, I absolutely loved this book. Cass is not afraid to confront her own haunted past and understandings about the suffragist and civil rights movements as a white woman. But it is clear from the contents of Suffrage Song, as well as its bibliography that Cass has done her research and is not looking to virtue signal, but instead try to untangle and bring to light so much of this hidden history. The book is engaging, funny, tender, and challenging. I both wanted to devour and savor the book at the same time. Suffrage Song will definitely get a few more reads from me as well as recommendations to my colleagues and perhaps a place on my syllabus.

Suffrage Song: The Haunted History of Gender, Race and Voting Rights in the U.S. is available now from Fantagraphics Books Inc. wherever you get your books.