... exhaustive ... captures a game-changing cultural moment during the tumultuous years of the Gilded Age ... colorfully detailed ... In White’s hands, this slice of history is as entertaining as it is enlightening.
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 ... 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.
White’s history of the Sioux Falls divorce colony is narrated energetically; she draws extensively on press reports from the time, giving the book the gossipy feel and lurid spin characteristic of Gilded Age media. Reading this, you get the sense that Americans used to have more fun with the English language ... Yet White presents these women as revolutionaries only by default; their private desires and personal bank accounts thrust them into national debates about divorce and the public interest ... White focuses on four absurdly rich women whose marriages broke down in fittingly extravagant fashion ... Money is the primary subject of The Divorce Colony; gold-backed dollar bills practically fall out of the pages. In foregrounding excess, White is not being sensationalist but rather intellectually honest, because at its heart, this is a story about rent, and who could afford to pay it for 90 days in Sioux Falls. If The Divorce Colony is wealth porn, it is wealth porn on a mission. In detailing what money makes possible, White gestures at what the lack of money forces women to endure ... These wild stories of marital escape are a reminder, bright and sparkling for those who need it, that when endings are out of reach, so too are new beginnings.
Through well-documented research, White melds the changing stances within the worlds of politics, religion, the courts and the growing nation's social culture, all of which were moving slowly, incrementally, more tolerant of necessary divorce ... White does not craft a defense of divorce, but a history of its advance. Few participants emerge without flaws. Some of the women remarried within the week.
... entertaining and edifying ... Ms. White, a writer and editor at online travel magazine Atlas Obscura, benefits from the period’s fascination with the would-be divorcees, quoting liberally from lurid tabloid reports of their travails. She acknowledges that most of the Dakota divorces were quiet, mutual proceedings, but her book ends up being skewed toward the salacious cases. While they might not be representative, they surely make for more enjoyable reading.
... engaging ... absorbing, thoroughly researched ... 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. ... 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.
... a colorful history ... 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.
