AMERICA’S FORGOTTEN SUFFRAGISTS: Virginia and Francis Minor by Nicole Evelina – Biographies, Women’s Suffrage, Political History

Comprehensive in its own right, America’s Forgotten Suffragists by Nicole Evelina is an essential addition to the canon of women’s suffrage and first-wave feminism.

Equal parts local history of women’s right to vote in the nineteenth century and biography of Virginia and Francis Minor, America’s Forgotten Suffragists illuminates the story of a wife-and-husband feminist duo who were the first to fight for women’s suffrage at the Supreme Court level.

We learn about the lives of Virginia and Francis Minor by way of historical records, intersecting timelines with other suffragists, and news articles and letters. Virginia Minor was raised on the new and intellectually stimulating University of Virginia campus, where her father worked. Born into a colonial settler and slave-owning family, Virginia came into her own as she grew older, forming abolitionist and feminist beliefs.

In 1869, Virginia realizes that, through implication, the Constitution could grant women the right to vote by way of the Fourteenth Amendment, which acknowledged the freedom, citizenship, and human rights of Black men freed from enslavement. She shares her thoughts with Francis — a practicing lawyer and constant ally for women’s financial independence. And when Virginia is denied from registering to vote in 1872, she sues and goes to court with Francis as her attorney, to introduce her interpretation of the law.

As history reveals, the Minors lost their case. However, they ignited conversations about women’s suffrage nationwide, pushing others to take up the charge.

Virginia became good friends with Susan B. Anthony, collaborating on suffrage campaigns in the Midwest, and giving speeches in territories that were becoming states. Francis Minor continued his advocacy for the feminist cause by publishing his writing on women’s rights. To preserve their words, biographer Evelina includes many of the Minor’s speeches and articles, as well as Virginia and Francis’s petition in full calling for the Supreme Court to acknowledge women’s right to vote based on the Fourteenth Amendment.

What truly shines about this book — along with its gentle prose and historical scene-setting — is what it teaches about the origins of first-wave feminism and why the American voting system continues to disenfranchise Black citizens.

Nicole Evelina takes great care to analyze Virginia’s 1875 Supreme Court case, Minor v. Happersett, from all angles.

Minor v. Happersett has been (mis)used over seven times since the trial to reinforce voter suppression tactics. Evelina demonstrates through this extensive biography of Virginia and Francis Minor that the issues we face today — election tampering, gerrymandering, expunged registration records, and restrictions on accessible voting methods for the working class — can, in part, be traced back to this case.

This biography documents one woman’s bold path to securing women’s rights, a beacon of hope for a world where no person is lesser than another.

America’s Forgotten Suffragists: Virginia and Francis Minor won Grand Prize in the 2021 CIBA Nellie Bly Awards for Longform Journalism Non-fiction.