Due Out By 2/2/23
The vote at last is won for women, so what’s next for our suffragist? In the Far Beyond Woman Suffrage series, this second novelette follows Mercy Martin Hamblin testing what women can do now and where she should throw her efforts.
She’s started at the University of Tennessee to prepare for teaching social studies. Still, she’s plagued by the women and men of color left behind in the push, letting bigots decide what “local conditions” will permit via Jim Crow. She is also determined that the peace her husband died for in France will last. With three loving grandparents to watch her wonderful toddler as she studies, Mercy is blossoming. She is coming to see suffrage is about more than putting ballots in a box, so she’s preparing to do the work of expanding suffrage’s choices to allow people to govern their own lives.
Mercy’s Grandma finally says, “Start dating, Sweetheart. You have so much to offer a man. It’s time.” Her body and heart have been telling her the same thing. There’s that cute congressman who clinched the woman suffrage amendment’s passage and a fellow teacher who tells about wartime adventures that could have been her Joe’s.
She’s not impressed with what her fellow Republicans are doing. They seem governed by greed, but the Southern Democrats are openly racist. Meanwhile, the countries that fought a world war for democracy are busy carving out colonies.
There are many exciting developments in transportation, science, and entertainment, and Mercy loves them, especially the Stutz Bearcat her father-in-law bought her for commuting. However, there’s still appalling ignorance, poverty, and injustice. And indifference, but not in Mercy!
As the United States plunges into the Great Depression, people are suffering. Mercy is uneasy about the response of the Republican president and impressed with what she hears from the Democratic candidate. Maybe she should get involved.
In this alternative history, the ground is being laid for Mercy to join in, though it may hurt her staunchly Republican family.
Anything can happen ….
She’s started at the University of Tennessee to prepare for teaching social studies. Still, she’s plagued by the women and men of color left behind in the push, letting bigots decide what “local conditions” will permit via Jim Crow. She is also determined that the peace her husband died for in France will last. With three loving grandparents to watch her wonderful toddler as she studies, Mercy is blossoming. She is coming to see suffrage is about more than putting ballots in a box, so she’s preparing to do the work of expanding suffrage’s choices to allow people to govern their own lives.
Mercy’s Grandma finally says, “Start dating, Sweetheart. You have so much to offer a man. It’s time.” Her body and heart have been telling her the same thing. There’s that cute congressman who clinched the woman suffrage amendment’s passage and a fellow teacher who tells about wartime adventures that could have been her Joe’s.
She’s not impressed with what her fellow Republicans are doing. They seem governed by greed, but the Southern Democrats are openly racist. Meanwhile, the countries that fought a world war for democracy are busy carving out colonies.
There are many exciting developments in transportation, science, and entertainment, and Mercy loves them, especially the Stutz Bearcat her father-in-law bought her for commuting. However, there’s still appalling ignorance, poverty, and injustice. And indifference, but not in Mercy!
As the United States plunges into the Great Depression, people are suffering. Mercy is uneasy about the response of the Republican president and impressed with what she hears from the Democratic candidate. Maybe she should get involved.
In this alternative history, the ground is being laid for Mercy to join in, though it may hurt her staunchly Republican family.
Anything can happen ….