Primary Source
Fannie Hurst: What of It? Have We Women Freed Ourselves from Men Or Do They Own Us More Than Ever Before?”
Redbook, Vol. 49, August 1927, pp. 60-62, 106, 108.
Era: Post-Suffrage Era | Media: Magazines
By 1927, the writer Fannie Hurst had earned a reputation as the nation’s highest paid short story writer and one of its most popular women of letters. She was often called upon to comment on issues of the day because—as the introduction to this article said—of her “perceptive qualities and graphic pen are given to brilliant interpretations of our times.”
Seven years after the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution, which gave the nation’s women the vote, Hurst expressed her dismay at how little progress women had made, even allowing for the relatively short amount of time that had passed.
“Sisters,” she wrote, “Seven years after, dare we here, in the fastness of the analytical chamber, three women in Congress and thirty in the State legislatures to the contrary notwithstanding, admit that our emancipation hasn’t come off?”
“There are precious few indications on the credit side of the suffrage ledger to indicate that the women of America have kept faith … ”
Proquest Magazines has a copy of the August 1927 issue of Redbook containing the Hurst article. The ProQuest Document ID for the article itself is 1807552580.
You can read here about The Sturdy Oak, a “composite novel” written collaboratively by Fannie Hurst and 13 other prominent American writers in support of women’s suffrage.
To read Hurst’s article and see the magazine cover, click the links below.