Elusive Victory: The Equal Rights Amendment Fight in Illinois

Inside the Illinois showdown that derailed the Equal Rights Amendment In this gripping account of one of the most consequential political battles of the twentieth century, Mark R.DePue takes readers inside the fight that halted the Equal Rights Amendment.Drawing upon hundreds of hours of original oral history interviews, DePue reconstructs the drama, strategy, and emotion of the ERA showdown in Illinois, the state that became the amendment's most critical battleground. First introduced in Congress in 1923, the Equal Rights Amendment has endured for more than a century as one of the most debated yet still unratified proposals in American constitutional history.Its ratification seemed closer than ever when Congress passed the ERA in 1972 and sent it to the states with a seven-year deadline, but in Illinois, a constitutional quirk stalled its momentum.Optimism faltered, and what followed was a political war like no other the state had ever seen.Illinois' state legislature in Springfield b