Loosening Corsets: The Heroic Life of Georgia's Feisty Mrs. Felton, First Woman Senator of the United States [SIGNED] [signed]

WINNER in the Independent Publisher Book Awards 2007 -- Gold Medalist, Best Regional Non-Fiction, Southeast. WINNER in the prestigious 2007 Eric Hoffer Award for Books (formerly The Writers Notes Book Award). Loosening Corsets has placed as First Runner-Up in the category: Best New Writing, Reference. NOMINATED for the Georgia Book of the Year Award. REVIEW BY THE ERIC HOFFER PANEL OF JUDGES: "In 1922 Rebecca Latimer Felton became the first female U.S. Senator for the term of only one day. This accomplishment might seem insignificant if it were not for Felton's long and active involvement in social reform and ultimately women's suffrage. Born into the destruction of the plantation south, Felton's life parallels the reformation of Georgia from the ashes. Staman is an engaging biographer and does well to show us the landscape as well as Felton's intriguing course of events. You'll finish this book remembering that there is a seat at the table for everyone, if we strive hard enough and demand the very best of ourselves." Although the book is nonfiction, the life of Rebecca Latimer Felton reads like a novel, revealing the nearly forgotten story of one of the most remarkable woman in history. A Georgian born before the Civil War, Felton became the first woman Senator of the United States in 1922, at age 87. A tireless crusader, her attempts at political and civil reform are set against the backdrop of a state in violent chaos. Sherman's matches, Reconstruction's graft, one-party corruption, the KKK, lynchers, hallelujah evangelicals, chain-gang convicts, the sneering H.L. Mencken, "unsexed" suffragists, WCTU crusaders, and something possibly worse than anything else - a tiny insect called the boll weevil - all strut or crawl or sweep across the pages of this work. According to the GA Literary Quarterly, this book should be in every college, high school and library in Georgia. Illustrated, indexed, endnotes, 266 pages.