The Co-Citizens

Sarah Hayden Mosely's death unsettles Jordantown, a Southern community whose businesses have come to depend on loans from her estate. The wealthy widow attracted little attention during her life, but her funeral brings out neighbors with a keen interest in her money. Her agent, Samuel Briggs, assumes that he knows her affairs, while the Reverend Paul Stacey hopes the church might benefit. Corra Harris uses their expectations and the town's busy gossip to introduce a novel about property, influence and women's place in public life.

The campaign for women's voting rights reaches into shops and marriages. Mabel Acres holds a position on its finance committee, and an interview about women's work provokes an angry confrontation with her husband, Martin. She links relief from his business difficulties to support for the movement. These exchanges give the book its comic edge, showing how political demands can disturb familiar arrangements at home and in the marketplace. Readers interested in suffrage fiction will find civic arguments expressed through everyday bargaining and personal loyalties.