Product Description
The only book on the market to bring together business and women's history, Incorporating Women: A History of Women and Business in the United States by award-winning author Angel Kwolek-Folland, is an engaging and unique survey of women in business that begins with 17th century Native American fur traders and ends with the producer of the film Top Gun. Along the way, the reader is introduced to some of the women - famous, infamous, and forgotten - who have engaged in business throughout U.S. history. This narrative challenges our expectations about both the history of women and the history of business as it focuses on the changing legal and social climate for women's economic activities and traces the expansion of opportunities as well as the persistent problems that continue to face women in the business world. Kwolek-Folland has chosen two organizational themes: women's business experiences in light of a diversity of economic relations, and the importance of the legal and social conditions of women to their business opportunities. Drawing on cutting-edge scholarship in the "new business history," this volume covers everything from firms and markets, to small and large businesses, to workers and entrepreneurs. The extensive research from both primary and secondary sources, incorporates the latest scholarship on women and business and is presented in clear, jargon-free prose that makes this introduction to women's business history accessible to scholars, students, and everyone interested in the role of American women in business throughout history. ... Read more

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Part of McGraw-Hill's Explorations in World History series, this brief and accessible volume presents a comparative survey of the early history of women from a global perspective.Each chapter, which can be read independently of the others, examines the experiences of women in one of seven civilizations typically covered in an introductory world history text: pre-agricultural societies, the Ancient Mediterranean, Gupta India/Southeast Asia, Tang/Song China, Maya and Aztec cultures, early Islam through the Abbasid caliphate, and Europe in the Late Middle Ages.Within these cultures, the authors explore a variety of issues impacting the lives of females in pre-modern history, including the ideal woman, female life cycles, women's roles in work and economy, female sexuality and spirituality, and women and politics.The book's brevity makes it an excellent companion text for students in world history, women's history, introductory sociology and anthropology courses, and women’s studies courses. ... Read more

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Unequal Sisters has become a beloved and classic reader in American Women’s History. It provides an unparalleled resource for understanding women’s history in the United States today. When it was first published in 1990, it revolutionized the field with its broad multicultural approach, and continued, through its next two editions, to emphasize feminist perspectives on race, ethnicity, region, and sexuality. This classic work is in its fourth edition, and has incorporated the feedback of end-users in the field, to make it the most user-friendly version to date.

Customer Reviews (2)

A virtual life saver
Were it not for this book, I seriously doubt I would have passed my women's history course. The editors were able to compile an impresive selection of scholarship that explained what my instructor could not.

Women's accheivements struggles and setbacks could not be properly examined unless one made a serious committment to understanding the interrelated issues of race, class, disability and sexual orientation in relation to gender and the predominant traits of the larger society. While the early women's history movement has been faulted for being predominantly middle class heterosexual and white, this book attempts to build a more complete future by giving a voice to the issues.

I wish everybody had access to this substantive piece of literature because it provides an excellent introductory and supplementary framework for research and even political organizing. While primarily intended for use in history courses, I believe it could be adapted for political science, sociology or even psychology.

A powerful presentation.
The third edition of this superb multicultural reader in U.S. women's history provides an essential work of powerful resources blending voices new to this edition with excellent feminist perspectives. Unequal Sistersincludes over twenty new essays written by women in the six years since thelast edition, with contributors ranging from Joyce Antler and Ellen CarolDubois to Vicki L. Ruiz. A powerful presentation. ... Read more

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In this remarkable reconstruction of an eighteenth-century woman's extraordinary and turbulent life, historian Linda Colley not only tells the story of Elizabeth Marsh, one of the most distinctive travelers of her time, but also opens a window onto a radically transforming world.Marsh was conceived in Jamaica, lived in London, Gibraltar, and Menorca, visited the Cape of Africa and Rio de Janeiro, explored eastern and southern India, and was held captive at the court of the sultan of Morocco. She was involved in land speculation in Florida and in international smuggling, and was caught up in three different slave systems. She was also a part of far larger histories. Marsh's lifetime saw new connections being forged across nations, continents, and oceans by war, empire, trade, navies, slavery, and print, and these developments shaped and distorted her own progress and the lives of those close to her. Colley brilliantly weaves together the personal and the epic in this compelling story of a woman in world history. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

History Makes for a Good Story
Absolutely fascinating.The story was compelling and I actually learned a great deal about world history.Hopefully, this genre will flourish in years to come.

A Ordeal for the reader
This bookshouldhave been titled "The Ordeal Of People Foolish Enough To Purchase And Then Try to Read The Unreadable The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh."

Much ado about nothing.

I gave up on page 137.

Tedious
This book was selected for my book club.It was universally reviewed as a "dud".Everyone in the club had trouble with this book.It was tedious to read, there was no emotional connection to Elizabeth Marsh, and not many of us even finished the book. I felt that I deserved 3 units in Ms. Colley's British History class, because I actually finished the book.The last one third of the book starts to move a little faster and is somewhat interesting.So, if you have started the book, you may as well finish it.You must read how Elizabeth dies.

for people who love history
A great book -- I discovered it from my History Book Club, before the great reviews poured in from the critics.I think the New York Times had it as one of its ten best at the end of the year. For all persons interested in women's history, biography, India, Caribbean.Shows how much certain intrepid souls traveled in days of yore.And a rarity in those days--tales written by a woman.The author has done her research carefully & thoroughly; text is easy to follow, not boring. Loved the fact that she was related to Edmund Burke.

The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh
This was one of the worst books I have ever read. It reads like a Ph.D. thesis - with some sentences being 2 and 3 lines long. There is nothing said by the heroine - just about her - and in a most tedious descriptive manner, often confusing (since her mother shared her name). Boring boring boring. I gave up after half of the book was finished. It was a Christmas gift to me and I will donate it to our local University - perhaps some student of history or genealogy would be interested. I am certainly not. ... Read more

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This social history focuses on the role American women played in the workforce during World War II. It describes the huge mobilization of labour necessary to supply US armed forces with machinery and weapons, and the evolution of women's roles in industry as a result of this. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Editorial and Soap Box Opera Altogether
Weatherford starts well but then throws out the pattern from the first chapter and gets worse by the mouthful. She uses a great deal of personal diary entries in the book which general depict a woman's frustration with her role or world and then Weatherford puts herself in the woman's shoes. For almost every "fact" that she delivers, she then adds her own take on the facts and the woman's position. Weatherford pretty soon becomes one of the diarist's angry entries page after page. For example, she repeatedly uses very petulant phrases like "once again," "finally," "sadly," "unfortunately" and the like to beat the dead horse. She also summarizes situations by making apocalyptic judgments on her data or topic, such as (p. 187) "the government ultimately could have saved itself billions of dollars in welfare costs if it had undertaken then to see that women's wages were raised to a reasonable level" and (p. 272) "Like millions of bright women before and after the war who were forced by their husbands' careers into military and college towns too small for their abilities. . ." Almost every woman described in this book gave 110% for thankless endeavors, got a crust of bread at day's end, walked two miles thru snow daily to reach her job, managed every chore under the sun without complaint, and then went to bed feeling tired but proud that she helped the war effort. Almost every man described in this book is a thoughtless bureaucrat unable to match a woman to a perfect role or place, a faithless husband or GI, a chauvinist -- an idiot in short. ONCE AGAIN, Weatherford editorializes every point and exaggerates every conclusion. The book has some merits and opened my eyes to a few things, but by and large this is hardly an objective account, but rather a tiresome tirade on the old theme of how perfect the world would be if women ruled and men silently followed orders.

great book, great condition
I think this book was as well written as American-Made: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA: When FDR Put the Nation to Work by Nick Taylor. That says a mouthfull. Real page turner.

Unsung Heroes
A great book on what really happened in WWII. These women lost lives and loves as they fought the Axis and supported our forces. It is well written and chock full of facts. ... Read more

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This concisely written book introduces readers to the most recent contributions of women to the history of art from the ancient past to the year 2000. It also focuses on the roles of women as patrons and collectors—along with the ways in which women have been represented in imagery in different periods. Organized chronologically of western civilizations and the roles women have played in their visual cultures, it highlights contributions from the Middle Ages to the present. Coverage includes Europe from 1450-1800; 19th Century France, United States and Victorian England; the Post World War II Era; contemporary art; and a conclusion of global issues for women artists: past, present, and future. For artists, and art lovers looking to truly understand and appreciate the outstanding contributions of women to the field.

Customer Reviews (7)

Great condition, great service
I was not only impressed by the FANTASTIC quality/condition of the book, I was impressed by how much care the sender (Pat Glaudel) put into this. I received it in just two business days along with a note from the seller, which was very thoughtful. I would recommend this book AND this seller to anyone. Top notch!

everybody should know about women artists - this is a good start!
Women Artists in History - as everybody probably knows History means His Story! The question Linda Nochlin asked in the seventies "Why have there been no great women artists" is because Art History has been written from male perspective. But indeed there were and are women artists.........
Most books about Art History (Janson - Honour & Fleming - Gombrich) don't mention women at all or give them a small place. THis book is all about women artists and gives a good chronological view about their efforts. I think it's an interesting book for everybody - those who are trained as Art Historians in the tradtional way (without much attention for the women) and those who like te know more about Art History in general.
This book tells about the women artists from antiquity to the present and that is a very interesting point of view, most other books start in the Renaissance. But in Antiquity, more specific Prehistory it was a Motherworld, in the Renaissance it is (as today) a Fatherworld. So it's good to see the social change from Motherworld to Fatherworld and the effects in the Arts.....
Last point I'd like to mention about this book is the booklist after each chapter, very useful!
I myself am an Art History theacher in the Netherlands and use this book in my classes (Basic Art History) besides Gombrich's "The Story of Art".

Great
Fast shipping and arrived on time, it's kept me going through class and survived the forces of a 1 year old.

A Lifelong Resource
This book was published just after I took the course with the same title with the author in the 1980's.I am now a professor myself at the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, Pa.I have used this book as a resource to teach as well as to write and create presentations for workshops.It is an excellent resources, well written, comprehensive, and as pertinent today as the day it was published.It is a 'must' for any teacher involved with art, art history, women students, or women's studies.I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in women's history.

Slatkin's book
Another reviewer here wrote that this would be an appropriate book for a beginning art history class.Well, take it from me, an art history teacher, that the students were bored with this book.The only complaint for my Women in Art (no prerequisite required) course was that this book needed to be replaced with something more in depth. ... Read more

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The New York Public Library amazing women in American History

Join Susan B. Anthony's fight for voting rights. Follow Sandra Day O'Connor to the U.S. Supreme Court and Sally Ride into space. Find the answers to your questions about the amazing women in American history...

Who were the Daughters of Liberty? See page 19.

Who was the first woman to run for president? See page 79.

Who were early leaders of the women's movement? See page 38.

Who was Sojourner Truth, and how did she get her name? See page 32.

What were flappers? See page 115.

Who was Mother Jones? See page 107.

How did the National Organization for Women (NOW) begin? See page 138.

What is The Feminine Mystique, and why is it so significant? See page 139.

Also in this series . . .

• The New York Public Library Incredible Earth
• The New York Public Library Amazing Space
• The New York Public Library Amazing African American History

Customer Reviews (1)

Essential Book For Your Child's Library
I was thrilled to encounter this book. Finally, there is a book to help fill the gaping hole in children's traditional history education. This book is written in a simple question and answer format that provides succinct historical facts about women of all colors.This book should be requiredin every school! ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Very satisfied
I received this product in a timely manor, and have no complaints about the condition of the product. I would definently recommend future purchases from this seller. ... Read more

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Mothers, wives, concubines, entertainers, attendants, officials, maids, drudges. By offering the first comparative view of the women who lived, worked, and served in royal courts around the globe, this work opens a new perspective on the monarchies that have dominated much of human history. Written by leading historians, anthropologists, and archeologists, these lively essays take us from Mayan states to twentieth-century Benin in Nigeria, to the palace of Japanese Shoguns, the Chinese Imperial courts, eighteenth-century Versailles, Mughal India, and beyond. Together they investigate how women's roles differed, how their roles changed over time, and how their histories can illuminate the structures of power and societies in which they lived. This work also furthers our understanding of how royal courts, created to project the authority of male rulers, maintained themselves through the reproductive and productive powers of women. ... Read more

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Discusses famous and lesser-known women in aviation from the earliest aviators who flew in balloons in the eighteenth century to modern flight, including gliders and helicopters. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Very Thorough History
"Skystars" covers women in aviation from Madame Thible's firstflight in a balloon to the first six women selected at NASA."Skystars" starts with early flight and moves to airplanes. Itcovers the barnstorming days, all the record setting flights for speed,altitude, and endurance. There is a chapter on the Women Airforce ServicePilots. The book looks ahead to oportunities for women in aviation. It waspublished in 1981; women had gotten jobs at airlines and NASA around 1978,so those chapters are very short. I'm afraid I can't validate the accurracyof the accomplishments of the people cited in the book, but I did enjoy it. ... Read more

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Drawing on myriad sources--from the faint traces left by the rocking of a cradle at the site of an early medieval home to an antique illustration of Eve's fall from grace-this second volume in the celebrated series offers new perspectives on women of the past. Twelve distinguished historians from many countries examine the image of women in the masculine mind, their social condition, and their daily experience from the demise of the Roman Empire to the genesis of the Italian Renaissance.

More than in any other era, a medieval woman's place in society was determined by men; her sexuality was perceived as disruptive and dangerous, her proper realm that of the home and cloister. The authors draw upon the writings of bishops and abbots, moralists and merchants, philosophers and legislators, to illuminate how men controlled women's lives. Sumptuary laws regulating feminine dress and ornament, pastoral letters admonishing women to keep silent and remain chaste, and learned treatises with their fantastic theories about women's physiology are fully explored in these pages. As adoration of the Virgin Mary reached full flower by the year 1200, ecclesiastics began to envision motherhood as a holy role; misogyny, however, flourished unrestrained in local proverbs, secular verses, and clerical thought throughout the period.

Were women's fates sealed by the dictates of church and society? The authors investigate legal, economic, and demographic aspects of family and communal life between the sixth and the fifteenth centuries and bring to light the fleeting moments in which women managed to seize some small measure of autonomy over their lives. The notion that courtly love empowered feudal women is discredited in this volume. The pattern of wear on a hearthstone, fingerprints on a terra-cotta pot, and artifacts from everyday life such as scissors, thimbles, spindles, and combs are used to reconstruct in superb detail the commonplace tasks that shaped women's existence inside and outside the home. As in antiquity, male fantasies and fears are evident in art. Yet a growing number of women rendered visions of their own gender in sumptuous tapestries and illuminations. The authors look at the surviving texts of female poets and mystics and document the stirrings of a quiet revolution throughout the West, as a few daring women began to preserve their thoughts in writing.

Customer Reviews (4)

Great condition
It came quickly and is in great condition for $6 and hard back as well.

Medieval misogyny: not exonerated, but explained
The Virginia Quarterly Review comments: "Analyses of medieval popular culture and art are woven together judiciously in this comprehensive and well-informed volume." The Review caught the book's strengths just right. Its thoughtful assembly and much of its writing shimmers. The book makes the non-rational logic of medieval minds much clearer.

Editor Christiane Klapisch-Zuber marshals participating authors and their work in a well-ordered sequence, showing her command of subject and materials in her Introduction, "Including Women." She starts at the appropriate pressure point, with Western Europe's first female professional writer, Christine de Pisan, and her "The City of Ladies." Klapisch-Zuber writes, "Just as the Middle Ages were giving way to the Renaissance, around 1400," Christine de Pisan was describing the "misfortune" of having been born a woman. For the first time a western woman dared to dissect and expose the "women's issue" in writing for publication.

Six hundred years later, "A History of Women in the West, Volume II, Silences of the Middle Ages" is still pressing the task that Christine de Pisan started, exploring and explaining the plight of the medieval female condition with a broader brush. Its first part, "Norms of Control," describes the need for priests to supervise women and explores the "Nature of Woman" (which was held to be different and inferior from the "better" male gender). Naturally, such weak and erratic beings needed protection, not least from themselves--which brings us to the final section of the first part.

The book leads us through well-balanced essays where expert authors explain how society--especially the male half--tied itself in knots to solve the mystery: What is "Woman"? Two and a half centuries earlier, Eleanor of Aquitaine's Court of Ladies had argued the case for women as the arbiters of social graces, and for a while the female condition in Christendom improved. But reactionary forces soon clawed back most gains: reactionaries found their literary champion in Jean de Meun's satirical "Romance of the Rose." In her turn, Christine de Pisan launched a resolute literary counterattack against de Meun.

Essays in "A History of Women in the West, Volume II, Silences of the Middle Ages" lead logically forward, charting the medieval ebb and flow of women's lib. and anti-lib. We accompany the changing status of women in a journey both informative and entertaining.

Robert Fripp, Author, "Power of a Woman. Memoirs of...Eleanor of Aquitaine"

Actually, this book is quite good
Blame it on my European origin, but it was pleasing, like a change of thelandscape, to read most of the essays. Even though I do consider myself afeminist, I was glad to finally find a modern academic book which doesn'tshare the pretentious and dry obsession about gender!

The style isfluid, with many anecdotes. Of course, one could argue that it is sometimestoo easy-going or not focused enough, but it is a recommendableintroduction.

A one-sided view...
One can at once notice the meticulous research that preceded the writing of the book, the more surprising is that the author describes only the reasons why women were considered "vessels of sin" in that periodof time and other hideous superstitions attributed to them. No line isdedicated (and to believe that history had not preserved any evidence ofthe contrary is laughable) about those mothers, mistresses, wifes, sistersthat had been deeply loved, adored and respected. To creat an opinion thatall women were either adored as saints or abhorred and violentlysubjugated, would be, to my idea, misleading.... ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

What a Book!
Donna Halper really knows her stuff, and she knows how to tell it in an interesting way. Everyone interested in how media affects us and society will be grateful for reading this. The struggles women had (and have) provide a significant glimpse into a world that is vital for us to understand. Highly recommended.

Women in broadcasting
If I had been a shaker and a mover in some area of broadcasting, it might have beem hard for me to read Donna Halper's new book, "Invisible Stars"--without feeling some embarrassment. Her story is the story of women who succeeded in American broadcasting, many of whom succeed in spite of the fact of their gender. It seems that back in the 1920s when radio was considered a toy, women were quite welcome to announce, sing or play an instrument, become program directors, and even in rare cases, own a radio station. But when radio began to be commercially profitable, when more and more people had radios, when networks came into being, then women were not so welcome, especially in the ranks of management.By the decades, Halper takes us through the history of how women made their mark, or were denied even the opportunity of trying to do that. The struggle of women for recognition and equality in radio and television reads something like the struggle for the same things by black people and other minorities. One of the mysteries that Halper brings to our attention is the developments before, during, and after World War II. Before the War, women's place was in the home, being the dutiful wife, keeping house, cooking the meals, taking care of the kids. During the War, women were encouraged to take jobs in war manufacturing plants, AND to do all the traditional stuff. When, after the War, the men came back and wanted their jobs back, women were expected to go back to the kitchen and nursery. And the same thing happened in broadcasting. The sad thing is that even though some women in radio and television have made important gains, much of the picture of broadcasting in the 2000s is not much different from what it was in the 1950s. Halper has done an excellent job of research, witness her extensive bibliography, in this well-written account of women in American broadcasting. Let Halper have the last word: "Perhaps one day soon, the pioneering women of radio and television will be given the same respect for their accomplishments that society has accorded their male counterparts. I hope this book will contribute to the process and keep women of broadcasting from remaining invisible stars."

A Review of _Invisible Stars_
Donna Halper's book Invisible Stars sheds daylight on the dim careers of American women in broadcasting.It's a lively book, and the women in it are a lively bunch:not only the expected announcers and managers, but station ownersand transmitter engineers have braved minority odds to follow the muse of radio.Arranged by decades from the pioneering 20s through the era of big networks to the fragmented markets of the new millennium, Halper's book traces a good double handful of female achievers as their careers changed with the times.

Halper's own achievements are noteworthy, not just in radio but in writing.The book is intensively researched and lavish of detail, yet written in a bright, wry style that continually absorbs and entertains.It's a serious work, but an accessible one, and not for hyper-feminists only.Halper doesn't suffer anit-feminists gladly, but clearly shows that anti-feminists aren't all male.Her just exasperation at sweeping stereotypes is tempered with humor and an admirably balanced tone.She chronicles the unfairness these women faced in their careers and is never unfair herself:when there are extenuating or alternative explanations for blatantly sexist acts, she always takes the time to point them out.

Gender interaction in the 20th century workplace isn't simply a tale of oppressors and their victims, and Halper knows that.She charts the ambiguous, hypocritical and sometimes schizophrenic attitudes in the minds of both sexes, and uncovers their roots in recession and war, as well as in the less excusable manipulations of the media.The women in this book aren't pure rebels or pure conformists.They're competent people trying to do their jobs, though power-structures are rigid, privilege is stacked against them, and shifting media mantras about how women ought to behave this time hum obsessively in the background.

Invisible Stars, in short, is no partisan screed, but an honest examination of its topic.Rational readers of both genders can expect to learn a lot from it about the workings of radio and of reality.

Long overdue recognition
Halper has finally given readers a book that highlights the formidable contributions of women in electronic media.The book is an important addition to the canon of broadcast history, and the author deserves credit for her thorough and ground-breaking research. The book is an enjoyable read and offers a wealth of information on how the so-called "ladies of the air" brought something of real substance and value to a hitherto male-dominated industry. It should be required reading for all student's of media as well as for those individuals who occupy executive and managerial positions in radio and television. ... Read more

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The Roaring Twenties are remembered as years of prosperity and frivolity that ended abruptly with the Great Depression of the 1930s. But for women there was continuity to these years, as their ability to effect change in political, cultural, and economic arenas began to gain strength. These "new women" listened to radio, starred in movies, and reigned as consumers. They could legally vote on the same basis as men everywhere in the U.S. They wore clothes that scandalized their grandparents but were far more comfortable than anything their mothers ever wore. In Eleanor Roosevelt, they found a model recognized internationally as a leading influence on American policy. But not all women shared equally in this emancipation. Black women, Jewish women, Native American women, poor women, immigrant women--they found many of the newly opened doors slammed shut for them. Even in the prosperous days of the flapper, some women faced a daily battle for survival. Meet educator and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune, anthropologists Margaret Mead and Zora Neale Hurston, tennis champion Helen Wills, Harlem Renaissance writer Jessie Fauset, blues singers Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey, Olympic medalist Babe Didrikson, lawyers, psychologists, labor leaders, farmworkers, housewives, and the host of women who shaped these decades. ... Read more

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A wealth of rare, firsthand material that sheds light on the everyday life of ordinary women in Russia from the early 1900s to the present day. The eight women interviewed represent diverse social backgrounds and geographical regions--and all were born before the Bolshevik revolution. A REVOLUTION OF THEIR OWN illuminates the harsh reality of women's daily lives in the Soviet Union, as well as expanded opportunities for women. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Living History
A very well-presented portrait of not just women, but of Soviet/Russian history.This book reminded me somewhat of James Baldwin in an off-hand way in that the stories of average people are sometimes more compellingthan those who usually find themselves in the history books.This is agreat addendum to any history teacher's library.

Beautifully Written
Barbara Engel is one of my professors at the University of Colorado, so I might be somewhat biased in my opinion of her book.This collection of stories provides long overdue insight into the lives of the overlookedcitizens of Russia and the Soviet regime: the women.Each life story isfabulously written, exceedingly interesting, and allows students to betterunderstand this most complicated area of the world.I don't think I haveever liked a book that was required reading for a class as much as thisone.Not only is Professor Engel an excellent writer, she is a wonderfulteacher as well.I feel privileged to be in her class. ... Read more

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1848 was a year of revolution. In the United States, several determined women in upstate New York drafted a declaration of rights modeled on the 1776 Declaration of Independence and held a convention, which was attended by almost 300 women and men. The Seneca Falls Convention, writes Harriet Sigerman, launched the formal women's rights movement in the United States. It was one of many historical events in which American women left their mark in the years between 1848 and 1865. This period also witnessed the expansion of the nation's boundaries and new settlements out West, the conflagration of the Civil War, and the nation's emergence as an industrial power. American women played a vital role in all of these events, as homesteaders, factory workers, nurses, physicians, army scouts and spies, and social reformers. Among the women featured in this volume are Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, the chief architects of the organized women's rights movement; Sojourner Truth, a powerful African-American orator who spoke for women's rights; Clara Barton, the dedicated Civil War nurse; and Harriet Tubman, a former slave who returned to the South more than 300 times to help free other slaves. Their stories and others tell of the setbacks and triumphs as women continued to fight for equal rights for all. ... Read more

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Americans living in the mid-20th century saw momentous change. A decade of severe economic depression in the 1930s was followed by the largest-scale war the world had ever seen. In Pushing the Limits, Elaine Tyler May shows how women's lives in the United States reflected and helped to shape these world changes. During the war, women joined the military effort through the WACS (Women's Army Corps) and the WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Services). Production demands drew women into manufacturing jobs and broadcast the famous image of Rosie the Riveter. After the war, women were encouraged to give up their jobs to the returning veterans and resume their tasks as wives and mothers.

We discover that women of all backgrounds pushed the limits of their circumstances, whether they were college-educated homemakers working to elevate the job of housewife to a respected career, working class women struggling to preserve the gains of wartime, or African American women leading the struggle for civil rights. Popular culture of the 1950s--TV shows such as "Ozzie and Harriet," "Leave It To Beaver," and "Father Knows Best"--promoted the subservient wife in a traditional nuclear family and kept women as homemakers. At the same time, however, women such as Rosa Parks became household names as they challenged racial and gender discrimination. These women, May reveals, paved the way for the political, sexual, and social movements of the 1960s and the feminist gains that would follow. ... Read more

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The 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s were decades of vast changes in the world at large: new nations emerged, technology advanced at a record pace, and environmental awareness intensified. Perhaps no change was more obvious than the shifting roles of women. William H. Chafe shows how the 1960s women's movement transformed ways of thinking about men's and women's destinies. In areas as diverse as work, sexuality, and politics women sought to claim rights as individuals, and to upset the hierarchy of power between the sexes. Feminist T-shirts proclaimed "A Woman Without a Man is Like a Fish Without a Bicycle." Betty Friedan published her groundbreaking book The Feminine Mystique. Gloria Steinem launched Ms. Magazine, a key voice of the feminist movement. The peace symbol and Woodstock became icons of the new political and counterculture, and the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in 1979 challenged sexual mores. Shirley Chisholm, Phyllis Schlafly, Roe v. Wade, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), the National Organization of Women (NOW), and the Moral Majority were other major influences during these turbulent decades. They represented women from varied walks of life, economic conditions, races, and religions who found themselves questioning and challenging each other as often as they did traditional society. ... Read more

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The first 10 volumes of The Young Oxford History of Women in the United States trace the path women followed over the past four centuries and tell the stories of individuals--famous and less well-known--who fought for women's social and political equality. This Biographical Supplement and Index rounds out the series with the personal histories of almost 250 of these women. Each biography is a "snapshot" of its subject--what she accomplished, how she lived, and what she believed in. Among the remarkable women featured here are Jane Addams, social reformer and founder of Hull House; Mary McLeod Bethune, African-American educator and clubwoman; Betty Friedan, whose writing helped to spark the contemporary feminist movement; Georgia O'Keeffe, the celebrated artist of the Southwest; Sarah Winnemucca, Native American activist; and Mildred (Babe) Didrikson Zaharias, the famous professional golfer. The Biographical Supplement and Index presents their fascinating life stories and those of other women who have helped to shape our nation's history.

The volume also contains a complete index to the series and includes a listing of museums, historic sites, and web sites related to the history of American women. ... Read more

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In the 30 years from 1890 to 1920--a period known as the Progressive Era--American women began to demand greater participation in the country's public and economic life than they had ever previously had. They sought, and won, both more freedom and more responsibility. Girls and women (many of them immigrants or the daughters of immigrants) swelled the growing ranks of wage earners and of high school and college students. African-American women, even in the racially divided South, increasingly became teachers or owners of small businesses. Other women, working through clubs and voluntary organizations, pressured government and businesses for reform. Following leaders such as suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt, birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger, black journalist Ida B. Wells, and social worker Jane Addams, women made significant personal and social gains. In 1920, after a 72 year struggle, they won the right to vote. Karen Manners Smith notes that even though the Progressive Era did not bring women full equality, it was nevertheless a time when an unprecedented number of women began to find New Paths to Power and fulfillment. ... Read more

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In the years following the Civil War, American women discovered new opportunities and obstacles in their quest for social and political equality. As the nation's boundaries and industrial might expanded, more women worked on the land as well as in factories. Women found new educational opportunities, but at the same time faced old barriers to their entry into male-dominated professions such as medicine and law. They also embarked on a remarkable endeavor, organizing hundreds of women's clubs to pursue common interests and promote social causes. Clubwomen sought to enhance their own education, end the consumption of alcoho, prevent violence against women, increase women's educational opportunities, initiate reforms within their own communities, and obtain the right to vote. Laborers for Liberty brings alive the stories and contributions of women from all class and ethnic backgrounds as they faced the challenges and opportunities of a nation preparing for the 20th century. ... Read more