How Hard Is It to Turn a Tide?

Edith here, gearing up for the release of Turning the Tide, Quaker Midwife Mystery #3. 

Actually, I don't think it's possible to turn an oceanic tide. It's not a little boat. It's not even a giant ocean liner or tanker. Our earth's ocean tides are mighty gravitation-powered forces. They come around more or less twice a day, with two high tides and two lows. The moon influences them. The weather influences them. We dinky humans have no effect, unless on a grand climate-change scale.

Don't trust me on this, though. I write novels, not science articles. But I'm pretty sure it's true. So why would I name a book if turning a tide isn't even possible?

The story opens at a meeting of the Amesbury Woman Suffrage Association a few days before election day in November 1888. We now know this was more than thirty years before women got the vote by the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the US constitution in 1920. But that didn't mean women weren't already protesting and lobbying for the right to express their opinions at the ballot box.

Gradually, inexorably, women were turning the tide of opinion toward allowing half the adult population to vote. In the same way as with the movement to legally enfranchise African-American men, Quakers were in the forefront of the women's rights movement. Midwife Rose Carroll joins forces with other Amesbury suffragists in this book, and her mother - a well-known activist for the cause - comes to town to stand in solidarity across from the polls on election day, as does Elizabeth Cady Stanton herself.

I'm so excited that this book will reach the reading public in three short months! In the meantime, I have five advance reader copies itching to reach the hands of avid fans. I'll give one away to  a commenter here today.

Readers: Do you vote? If not, why not? What do you think of when you exercise your right, not even a century old, to mark that ballot or pull that lever, whether in a local election or to name the next leader of the country?

Agatha- and Macavity-nominated author Edith Maxwell writes the Quaker Midwife Mysteries, the Local Foods Mysteries, and award-winning short crime fiction. As Maddie Day she writes the popular Country Store Mysteries and the new Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries. 

She is president of Sisters in Crime New England and lives north of Boston with her beau, two elderly cats, and an impressive array of garden statuary. She blogs at WickedCozyAuthors.com, KillerCharacters.com, and midnightwriters.blogspot.com. Read about all her personalities and her work at edithmaxwell.com

Studying 1888 Politics

Edith Maxwell here. Now that Called to Justice is launched to rave reviews ("A grand slam!" "A riveting historical mystery," "A mystery that surprises," and "A real page turner," I'm starting to write the fourth book in the Quaker Midwife Mysteries series. Wait, you say. What about Book Three?

Turning the Tide is already in production, and you can pre-order it (please do!) but the cover isn't up yet.

I loved writing this book. The story takes place during presidential election week of 1888. Here's the cover blurb:

Excitement runs high during Presidential election week in 1888. The Woman Suffrage Association plans a demonstration and movement leader Elizabeth Cady Stanton comes to town to rally the troops. When Quaker midwife Rose Carroll finds the body of the group's local organizer the next morning, she can't help but wonder who could have committed the murder.

Rose quickly discovers several people who have motives. The victim had planned to leave her controlling husband, and a recent promotion had cost a male colleague his job. She had also recently spurned a fellow suffragist's affections. After Rose's own life is threatened, identifying the killer takes on a personal sense of urgency.

What do you think? Sound like a fun read? The research was even more fun. I learned about election cakes. Women used to make these huge fruitcakes and the political party would give out pieces to men entering the polling place in an attempt to woo their vote.

I learned that the parties had different color ballots, and that the party regulars wore different color top hats while campaigning.

 I also studied up on women's suffrage. At the time they wore sunflower yellow sashes to protests and carried placards with slogans like, “Women Bring All Voters Into The World. Let Women Vote,” “Ballots for Both,” “Equal Suffrage,” and “Votes for Women.” Many of the suffrage leaders were Quakers like my midwife, so it wasn't a stretch to make Rose's mother an activist, too. John Greenleaf Whittier goes into vote in the election morning scene, and then comes to stand in solidarity with the women across the street from the polling place.

It was great fun studying Elizabeth Cady Stanton and bringing her  to Amesbury to support the women. She appears in several scenes in the book, even though I don't know if she actually ever visited my town where the series takes place. She was moving on to essays on personal responsibility, and I extracted bits of one for a talk she gave to a women's salon I portray in the book. 

Incumbent Grover Cleveland didn't win the election, as it turns out, even though Rose was on his side. And her investigation of the activist's murder turns dangerous, too. You'll have to read the book to find out if Rose is defeated or not.

What's your favorite election story, or factoid about either elections or women's suffrage in the past?