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Summary
Summary
** SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE, "10 BEST HISTORY BOOKS OF 2022"**
**AMAZON, "BEST BOOK OF THE MONTH (Nonfiction)"**
**APPLE, "BEST BOOK OF THE MONTH"**
From a historian and senior editor at Atlas Obscura, a fascinating account of the daring nineteenth-century women who moved to South Dakota to divorce their husbands and start living on their own terms
For a woman traveling without her husband in the late nineteenth century, there was only one reason to take the train all the way to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, one sure to garner disapproval from fellow passengers. On the American frontier, the new state offered a tempting freedom often difficult to obtain elsewhere: divorce.
With the laxest divorce laws in the country, five railroad lines, and the finest hotel for hundreds of miles, the small city became the unexpected headquarters for unhappy spouses--infamous around the world as The Divorce Colony . These society divorcees put Sioux Falls at the center of a heated national debate over the future of American marriage. As clashes mounted in the country's gossip columns, church halls, courtrooms and even the White House, the women caught in the crosshairs in Sioux Falls geared up for a fight they didn't go looking for, a fight that was the only path to their freedom.
In The Divorce Colony , writer and historian April White unveils the incredible social, political, and personal dramas that unfolded in Sioux Falls and reverberated around the country through the stories of four very different women: Maggie De Stuers, a descendent of the influential New York Astors whose divorce captivated the world; Mary Nevins Blaine, a daughter-in-law to a presidential hopeful with a vendetta against her meddling mother-in-law; Blanche Molineux, an aspiring actress escaping a husband she believed to be a murderer; and Flora Bigelow Dodge, a vivacious woman determined, against all odds, to obtain a "dignified" divorce.
Entertaining, enlightening, and utterly feminist, The Divorce Colony is a rich, deeply researched tapestry of social history and human drama that reads like a novel. Amidst salacious newspaper headlines, juicy court documents, and high-profile cameos from the era's most well-known players, this story lays bare the journey of the turn-of-the-century socialites who took their lives into their own hands and reshaped the country's attitudes about marriage and divorce.
Author Notes
April White is a senior writer and editor at Atlas Obscura. She previously worked as an editor at Smithsonian Magazine . She holds a master's degree in history and her work has appeared in publications including the Washington Post , The Atavist Magazine , and JSTOR Daily, where she wrote a regular column on the history of food,. She lives in Washington, DC.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Atlas Obscura editor White (Code of Ethics) delivers a colorful history of divorce in America focused on women who came to Sioux Falls, S.Dak., to end their marriages. Requiring only a three-month stay to establish residency, Sioux Falls was the epicenter of the controversy over "migratory divorce" and the "rampant immorality" it was presumed to foster. Noting that two out of every three divorce seekers were women, White profiles Maggie De Stuers, a descendant of John Jacob Astor who came to Sioux Falls to divorce her Dutch diplomat husband; Mary Nevins Blaine, whose father-in-law, Republican congressman and presidential candidate James Blaine, tried to invalidate her marriage in its first week; Blanche Molineux, an aspiring actor convinced her husband was a murderer; and socialite Flora Bigelow Dodge, whose short stories and plays "pok fun at the petty grievances, outdated mores, and gossip-fueled misunderstandings of the world she moved in." Opposition voices included Episcopal bishop William Hobart Hare, who claimed that the presence of divorce seekers in Sioux Falls gave him "moral nausea." White's vivid character sketches and fluid storytelling buttress her argument that by seeking divorce, these women helped to democratize marriage. Women's history buffs will savor this sparkling account. Agent: Andrea Blatt, WME. (June)
Kirkus Review
An engaging portrait of a little-known time in American history when the phrase going to Sioux Falls was synonymous with divorce and select women had the rare opportunity to control their own destinies. In this absorbing, thoroughly researched account, White, a senior editor at Atlas Obscura and former editor at Smithsonian magazine, puts readers directly into the lives of four inspirational women in late-19th-century America. At a time when states determined their own divorce laws--and when it was often impossible for women to advocate for themselves--Sioux Falls, South Dakota, offered a chance for them to reclaim their freedom. They need only live in the frontier city for 90 days to establish themselves as residents, and then they were free to file for divorce and potentially unbind themselves from their partners, many of whom were ill-tempered, philandering, abusive, or even murderous. Husbands and wives weren't always at odds, however, as some colluded on the matter and worked toward a mutually beneficial end to their marriages. Interwoven with the biographical information about the women are in-depth examinations of what society, the church, and political figures felt about the Sioux Falls loophole and the increasing number of broken marriages, and White shows how those opinions factored into the creation of divorce laws throughout the U.S. Leaders of both church and state, writes the author "would attack this scourge with religious condemnation, legal obstacles and expense, new legislative restrictions, and the threat of ostracism." Particularly interesting are the opinions of suffragists of the day. What might seem to be a given--that women's rights activists would support fewer barriers to divorce--is in fact more problematic, as the author demonstrates. Other delightful insights include the women's various levels of commitment to the residency ruse. As always, divorce was easier for those with money and status. White effectively humanizes her subjects while remaining faithful to telling nothing but the fascinating truth. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
White discusses the phenomenon of migratory divorce in late nineteenth-century Sioux Falls. She focuses on a handful of wealthy white women who sought divorce for reasons ranging from adultery to cruelty to moral turpitude. The South Dakota city had one of the laxer divorce laws in the country, requiring only a 90-day residency. An outspoken bishop, William Hare, was vexed by its reputation as a "Divorce Colony" and succeeded in a campaign to tighten restrictions, eventually expanding the residency requirement to a year. By the 1930s, Nevada, particularly Reno, had supplanted Sioux Falls as the go-to destination for a quickie divorce. More and more women refused to forsake their own happiness or settle for a partnership in which they were subjugated, which was reflected in the country's booming divorce rate. The author acknowledges that Black women in particular had only recently been granted a legal right to a recognized marriage, and the right to divorce remained out of reach for those without financial means. Despite the book's somewhat rarified scope, this is a valuable and intriguing contribution to American social history.
Library Journal Review
White follows four women (including an Astor and an aspiring actress) as they traveled to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in the late 19th century, all seeking the same thing: a divorce from their husbands. Sioux Falls attracted divorce-seekers from across the country--wealthy women in particular--with its five rail lines, its luxury hotel (rare on the frontier), and the most accomodating divorce laws in the U.S. The many Sioux Falls divorcées, nicknamed "the Divorce Colony" in the press, were at the center of a national debate about divorce and the state of American family. The dramatic lives of this book's East Coast-socialite subjects will captivate White's readers the way it captivated the American public a century ago. Just as fascinating, White expertly weaves in the politics of divorce (from churches to the courts to the White House) and does justice to the Divorce Colony women who she says started a revolution simply by seeking divorce. VERDICT A spellbinding look into a forgotten history, with engaging storytelling that makes it feel like a dramatic novel instead of the well-researched nonfiction it is. A must for anyone interested in women's history.--Carleigh Obrochta
Table of Contents
| Prologue: Is Marriage a Failure? | p. ix |
| Part 1 Maggie | |
| 1 A Thriving and Interesting Place | p. 3 |
| 2 In Good Faith | p. 10 |
| 3 Just Another | p. 22 |
| 4 Budding Hope and Dead Passions | p. 33 |
| 5 A Savage American | p. 46 |
| Part II Mary | |
| 6 Ardor and Inexperience | p. 61 |
| 7 The Campaigns | p. 71 |
| 8 Undesirable Cattle | p. 84 |
| 9 A Personal Statement | p. 94 |
| 10 Let Not Man Put Asunder | p. 105 |
| Part III Blanche | |
| 11 A Moral Superstition | p. 115 |
| 12 Free as Air | p. 124 |
| 13 The Sentence | p. 137 |
| 14 To Be Left Alone | p. 149 |
| Part IV Flora | |
| 15 Happiness Will Follow Thee | p. 163 |
| 16 A Tramp and an Exile | p. 174 |
| 17 Stupid, Unjust, Monstrous, and Foolish | p. 183 |
| 18 Light in the Sky | p. 194 |
| 19 Heart | p. 205 |
| Epilogue: A Rising of Ideals | p. 215 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 229 |
| Notes | p. 235 |
| Index | p. 267 |
