Author Talk with Anne Gass
Author Talk with Anne GassWe Demand: The Suffrage Road Trip
Friday, April 28 at 2:00 p.m. in the Great Room
Join us in the Great Room to hear author Anne Gass discuss her new historical novel.
Anne Gass is the author of We Demand: The Suffrage Road Trip, an historical fiction novel based on the true story of a 1915 road trip for the suffrage cause. It is illustrated by her daughter, Emma Leavitt of Solei Arts. Anne is a “women’s rights history activist” who loves sharing what she’s learned about this rich history with others, hoping to inspire their activism!
About the book:
Middle-aged Swedish immigrants Ingeborg Kindstedt and Maria Kindberg visit San Francisco’s Panama-Pacific International Exposition in the summer of 1915, planning to buy a car and have a leisurely drive back to their home in Rhode Island. On impulse, they volunteer to bring along two envoys heading to Washington, DC to demand votes for women from President Woodrow Wilson and Congress. Soon they are plunged into a difficult and dangerous journey that pushes them to the very limits of their endurance. Over primitive, poorly-signed roads and through blazing heat, biting cold, rain, and snow, they battle their way across the country.
Along the way they encounter unexpected allies, as well as those who oppose women’s growing independence. They meet labor activist Joe Hill, Black suffrage and anti-lynching activist Ida B. Wells Barnett, and civil rights attorney Clarence Darrow. Their faith in their adopted country is tested as they grapple with America’s racial politics, and see growing intolerance toward immigrants and working people. Will they- and the petitions- surmount these obstacles and arrive in Washington DC at the appointed day and time?