The Torch Bearer A Look Forward and Back at the Woman's Journal, the Organ of the Woman's Movement

The Torch Bearer by Agnes E. Ryan casts a compelling light on the Woman's Journal, tracing how the organ of the woman’s movement shaped suffrage, reform, and public opinion. Ryan weaves a practical, behind-the-scenes portrait of a powerful weekly devoted to women’s educational, industrial, legal and political equality—showing how editors, contributors and field workers coordinated editorial strategy, circulation, advertising, research and finance to keep the cause alive. Part history, part institutional memoir, this Politics-focused account documents the Journal’s founders and staff—Lucy Stone, Henry B. Blackwell, Alice Stone Blackwell and others—while explaining the mechanics of running a national reform paper: departments for publicity, literature, research, and fundraising; charts of circulation and costs; and the Journal’s reach to dozens of countries. The narrative illuminates themes of organization, grassroots mobilization, and media’s role in social change without sensationalizing personal stories. Ideal for students of suffrage history, feminist activists, political historians, and anyone curious about how a reform movement built and sustained its press, this audiobook offers both a tactical manual and a lyrical tribute to the long work of public persuasion.