Not for Ourselves Alone

In the first women's rights convention held at Seneca Falls, NY, on July 19, 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton (who, in marriage, struck the word "obey" from the vows and retained her own last name), introduced the Declaration of Rights & Sentiments, which, among other items, asked--some 72 years after the Declaration of Independence--for women's right to vote. Stanton and her political partner and friend Susan B. Anthony would not live to see the request granted, another 72 years after the Seneca Falls meeting. Ken Burns and Paul Barnes' Not for Ourselves Alone offers--like most other Burns efforts--another masterful story about incredible individuals whose tales are told against a deftly drawn social, political and cultural backdrop. Although they could not have been further apart in many respects (Stanton was married and a mother of seven, while Anthony went to her octogenarian grave single; Stanton was a wordsmith reluctant to travel; Anthony, in turn, an indefatigable circuit speaker who took Stanton's eloquent words on the road), the two women who spearheaded the fight for women's rights for over half a century were united in a common cause that met with incredible opposition from men and women alike. Combining interviews, letters and excellent archival visual materials, Not for Ourselves Alone is both an absorbing chronicle of the rocky road to women's suffrage and a timely reminder that certain rights we take for granted today are, in fact, the results of fairly recent hard-won struggles. Highly recommended. Editor's Choice. Aud: H, C, P. (R. Pitman)