Helen Hamilton Gardener’s Audacious Pursuit of Equality and the Vote

After being outed in Ohio newspapers in 1876 for having an affair with a married man, Helen Hamilton Gardener reinvented herself and dedicated her life to securing women's financial, bodily, and political autonomy -- recognizing that the three were fundamentally intertwined. She joined the freethought movement, then worked to raise the age of sexual consent for girls (in 1890 it was 12 or younger in 38 states), became a famous speaker and author, and, eventually, the "most potent factor" in Congressional passage of the 19th Amendment and the highest-ranking woman in federal government. Her life story centers sex and race in the history of suffrage and issues an urgent call for the importance of women's history.