Living in the UK, I was unaware of Clara Colby, and her impact globally on the Suffrage movement. The author, John Holliday has rectified that for me.

I grew up knowing Emiline Pankhurst, Emily WIlder and many more British suffragettes, though I knew very little of the women who worked tirelessly on the other side of The Atlantic.

This is a deep dive into Clara’s life, personally and her impact on the changing political situation of the era. She was fearless, bold and highly intelligent.

The author has clearly researched his subject incredibly well. She was a remarkable woman, whom other women owe so much too.

This celebrates another woman in history instrumental in the women's right to vote. The Ninetheenth Amendment observed the 100th anniversary in late 2020. This one is about a woman perhaps new to us because her story has not been told before. Even if we have heard her name this great book provides a picture of who she was and what she did to help in this important movement. She was a British-American and a leader in this effort. She came to America from England and excelled. She was a teacher, writer, public speaker and publisher, which I feel all helped her as a great leader. A friend of the founders of the movement she became involved as well as leading others. I recommend it.

I had never heard of Clara Colby prior to reading this biography. The suffrage movement is always equated to women like Susan B. Anthony, who was a mentor to Clara.. Clara was born in England, but her influence helped with the addition of the 19th Amendment in the United States. This was such an interesting read.

A little known, but key figure in the Suffragette movement. This is a book that should be required reading, and her name should be better known than it is.

Clara Colby, previously unknown to me, was a remarkable woman and led a remarkable life. John Holliday is to be congratulated on this meticulously researched biography which will bring her life back into the public eye. A key player in the American Suffrage movement she didn’t confine her campaigning to the US but travelled all over the world and made the acquaintance of many of the women equally committed to the cause, for which she worked tirelessly. Her energy was quite astounding. In a life full of incident and adventure, her personal life left much to be desired, especially following her less than successful marriage and her adoption, at her husband’s insistence, of a Native American baby, a survivor of the massacre at Wounded Knee. This child grew up to have a remarkable life herself but the relationship between mother and daughter was troubled indeed. It’s a good, solid, well-written biography, and I very much enjoyed it.

Its interesting reading a biography of someone you know nothing about. The biographer of course knows way too much, and in this case assumes a base level of knowledge of who Clara Colby was (the base level is there in its subtitle - International Suffragist). But I know very little about the battle for women's suffrage in the USA, the British story being so overwhelming, the Pankhurst's and the Kings Horse and all that. Of course my assumption was that the USA, being the USA, would have a much more violent story, But this is not the case.

There are two stories of Clara Colby being told here. The one as a campaigner for women's suffrage - in which see seems a pivotal second rung figure (we are often told of her progress by Susan B Anthony's opinion of Clara. The other is as a woman, and messy private lives are often a lot more interesting than a list of the rallys' speeches and articles someone has written. In this case, much more interesting because Clara had the misfortune of marrying a right bounder, a lawyer and soldier whose many crimes included trying to swindle his whole town out for money for some real estate, buying/adopting one of the few survivors of the Wounded Knee Massacre and then leaving the child to be raised by Clara without any support. Oh and sleeping around and getting someone else pregnant (and then using said person to swindle the US Government out of Cuban reparations -whilst paying Clara no alimony). He, and the Native American daughter, often threaten to take over the book - and whilst the biography is happy to reproduce a lot of personal letters, I did feel that some flavour of Clara's public oratory and writing was missing.

This is a solid biography, it tells you what you need to know about her life, and is always an engaging read (not least because she had an always engaging life). But it was possibly too narrowly focused on Colby, it might be a book to read if you have first read a history of US suffrage and got a little interested in this odd central figure with thee crooked husband and native American child.