Far Beyond Woman Suffrage

Far Beyond Woman Suffrage

by David McCracken

 

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GENRE:   alt-history/coming of age

 

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BLURB:

 

Far Beyond Woman Suffrage: The Prices of the Vote

It isn’t just about women in long skirts finally voting. The racists and the rich know that, and the politicians worry.

Mercy Martin has an inside view as the battle for woman suffrage nears a climax, but she encounters many puzzles:

• So many women and Southern states oppose votes for women; 
• So many people are afraid it would bring on free love, abandonment of family, economic catastrophe, or communism.

• So many suffragists are willing to abandon black women voters.
  
  

From an innocent teen to a young adult, Mercy has a central role in the campaign. She advances from confinement in a suffragist jail cell to the national campaign for the suffrage amendment. She campaigns around Tennessee, ending at the capitol for the explosive climax in the last state that might ratify the amendment and grant the vote to women.

Why should something so clearly right be so hard, and why were some bitter compromises made? Mercy is right in the middle, relied on by key players. Along the way, she acquires a husband, a baby, and better parents than she was born with.

This is an intimate view via alternative historical fiction, as accurate as it can be and as thoughtful and moving as it must be. In this first novella of a series, Mercy jumps into the campaign for woman suffrage and prepares for a vital role in the coming decades. She’ll continue on into the wider civil rights struggle growing out of woman suffrage.

 

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EXCERPT

 

Progress? 1/12/1918  

I excitedly wait before my shift on the line to discuss with Miss Sue news I heard about, that the House approved the woman suffrage amendment 274 to 136 two days ago! “So, we’re almost there?” I ask her when she’s passing by, checking how we pickets she’d assigned for the day are doing.

 

Her mouth tightens: “Sweety, we’ve just begun. That’s just over the required 2/3, and I understand the Senate will refuse even to debate it until October. “ 

 

“How can that be? Don’t they know it’s right … and important?”

 

“They’re afraid of the heat they’ll get from both sides and probably can’t line up the votes to pass it. In Southern states, a vote for woman suffrage is political suicide because negro women there would be able to combine their votes with Northern liberals.”

 

I look down: “Then it’s hopeless?”

 

“No, an election is coming. If they postpone a vote until after the election, we might win the few more seats we need.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Don’t worry. We’re not letting any of them off the hook, especially not Woodrow Wilson. It’s his Democratic party, his responsibility. No excuses. He’s got to produce the votes.”

A Word With The Author

1.Did you always want to be an author?

No, but I have since high school, and I’m 81.

2.Tell us about the publication of your first book.

As an alt-history multimedia interactive sci-fi autobiography there wasn’t much place for it but Amazon, since I didn’t want any editor say “You can’t do that!”. I did it just the way I wanted to, when I wanted to.

3.Besides yourself, who is your favorite author in the genre you write in?

Orson Scott Card, George Orwell, Stephen King

4.What's the best part of being an author? The worst?

For best or worst, I’m on my own.

5.What are you working on now?

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 … 

 

 

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

 

David McCracken became a political activist when the Supreme Court ruled against school segregation. Fellow students joined him in urging the school board in Winchester, KY, to integrate immediately. He campaigned for a Democratic governor and joined the ACLU before he graduated from the University of Kentucky. After debating at U.K., he got a degree in economics and a job with the U.S.  Department of Commerce. 

 

When his daughters approached school age, he became increasingly concerned with how he wanted them schooled. Researching that, he decided teaching was what he really wanted to do. He got a master's degree in elementary education at Murray State University. He taught for several years, until the fact that his girls qualified for reduced-price lunches based on his salary got to him. Ronald Reagan's anti-government policies prevented him from returning to government work, so he took programming courses and shifted careers again. Programming was like being paid to solve puzzles all day, but teaching eventually drew him back until retirement. 

 

For many years of this time, he was working intermittently at a novel that became Fly Twice Backward: Fresh Starts in Times of Troubles. This concerned his waking on his twelfth birthday, trying to figure out what had happened, following his new opportunities, and ultimately outliving an evil president resembling Donald Trump. After thirty-six years, David finally published it as an interactive alt-history Kindle novel. He soon started, Far Beyond Woman Suffrage: The Prices of the Vote, an alt-history novelette dealing with the campaign for woman suffrage. He finished this piece in just ten months. At 81, he is bold(?) enough to plan this as the first of a six-volume set dealing with the far-reaching results and implications of woman suffrage. His completed novels and another in the works are presented for discussion on a new website, DoFancifulFlights.com

 

David now lives with his third wife, stepdaughter, and step-grandson near Winchester, VA. He has a son from his second marriage, six grandchildren, and two stepchildren. And a wonderful black dog with four white feet.

 

Website: http:// DoFancifulFlights.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/702749.David_McCracken

 

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Far-Beyond-Woman-Suffrage-Prices-ebook/dp/B09DPSTN35/

 

The book will be on sale for $0.99 during the tour

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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION:

 

David McCracken will be awarding a $10 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. 

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway