Speaking Up for Women: Clarina Nichols and the World’s First Women’s Rights Campaign

Eickhoff has revised Revolutionary Heart, her 2006 biography of activist Clarina Nichols, to provide teenage readers an overview of the early days of the women’s rights movement. Eickhoff traces the roots of Nichols’s activism from her compassion for women trapped in troubled marriages to her experience as a wife of a difficult and unloving husband. After remarrying a newspaper editor and beginning to write for his paper, Nichols found her first public forum for her views, going on to serve at the front lines of the fight for women’s social, political, and economic liberties. Readers will gain a sense of the bravery and conviction it took for Nichols and other women to challenge unjust and ingrained ideologies in order to ensure freedom for future generations. Ages 12–up. (Feb.)