A Companion to American Women's History / Edition 1

by Nancy A. Hewitt

Overview

This collection of twenty-four original essays by leading scholars in American women's history highlights the most recent important scholarship on the key debates and future directions of this popular and contemporary field.

• Covers the breadth of American Women's history, including the colonial family, marriage, health, sexuality, education, immigration, work, consumer culture, and feminism.
  
• Surveys and evaluates the best scholarship on every important era and topic.
  
• Includes expanded bibliography of titles to guide further research.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781405126854
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	01/14/2005
Series:	Wiley Blackwell Companions to American History , #31
Edition description:	Older Edition
Pages:	512
Product dimensions:	6.70(w) x 9.75(h) x 1.08(d)

About the Author

Nancy A. Hewitt is Professor of History and Women’s Studies at Rutgers University. She is the author of Women's Activism and Social Change (1984) and Southern Discomfort: Women’s Activism in Tampa, Florida, 1880s-1920s (2001), Women's Activism and Social Change (2001), the editor of Women, Families, and Communities (1990), and co-editor of Visible Women: New Essays on American Activism (1993), and Talking Gender: Public Images, Personal Journeys, and Political Critiques (1996).

Table of Contents

About the Contributors ix

Introduction xii

Part I the Colonial Era, 1600±1760 1

1The Imperial Gaze: Native American, African American, and Colonial Women in European Eyes 3

Kirsten Fischer

2 Slavery and the Slave Trade 20

Jennifer L. Morgan

3 Contact and Conquest in Colonial North America 35

Gwenn A. Miller

4 Building Colonies, Defining Families 49

Ann M. Little

5 Sinners and Saints: Women and Religion in Colonial America 66

Susan Juster

Part II the Creation of a New Nation, 1760±1880 81

6 A Revolution for Whom? Women in the Era of the American Revolution 83

Jan E. Lewis

7 Gender and Class Formations in the Antebellum North 100

Catherine Kelly

8 Religion, Reform, and Radicalism in the Antebellum Era 117

Nancy A. Hewitt

9 Conflicts and Cultures in the West 132

Lisbeth Haas

10 Rural Women 150

Marli F. Weiner

11 The Civil War Era 167

Thavolia Glymph

12 Marriage, Property, and Class 193

Amy Dru Stanley

13 Health, Sciences, and Sexualities in Victorian America 206

Louise Michele Newman

Part III Modern America, 1880±1990 225

14 Education and the Professions 227

Lynn D. Gordon

15 Wage-earning Women 250

Annelise Orleck

16 Consumer Cultures 274

Susan Porter Benson

17 Urban Spaces and Popular Cultures, 1890±1930 295

Nan Enstad

18 Women on the Move: Migration and Immigration 312

Ardis Cameron

19 Women's Movements, 1880s±1920s 328

Kirsten Delegard

20 Medicine, Law, and the State: The History of Reproduction 348

Leslie J. Reagan

21The Great Depression and World War II 366

Karen Anderson

22 Rewriting Postwar Women's History, 1945±1960 382

Joanne Meyerowitz

23 Civil Rights and Black Liberation 397

Steven F. Lawson

24 Second-wave Feminism 414

Rosalyn Baxandall and Linda Gordon

Bibliography: Selected Secondary Sources 433

Compiled by April de Stefano

Index 481

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Hewitt has collected introductory yet well rounded essays that provide a diversity of scholarly interpretations of American women's history. Each contributor thoroughly synopsizes germane works while incorporating issues such as race, class, and religion. Highly recommended as an introductory examination of American women's history." Choice

“It is impossible to overstate the value of Nancy Hewitt’s Companion to American Women’s History. It guides us, with tremendous authority, into the vast world of American women’s history, as it has developed and as it stands at the beginning of the 21st century. But it is also a powerful intervention. Cutting across conventional categories and divisions, it recasts the field, raising provocative new questions, suggesting new approaches, and opening fresh paths to the future. I can’t imagine teaching or writing women’s history in the future without this Companion by my side.” Jacquelyn Hall, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

“The original essays in this volume, based on broad-ranging historiography, will be useful and provocative to both the beginning student and the seasoned scholar.” Nancy F. Cott, Harvard University

Editorial Reviews

"Hewitt has collected introductory yet well rounded essays that provide a diversity of scholarly interpretations of American women's history. Each contributor thoroughly synopsizes germane works while incorporating issues such as race, class, and religion. Highly recommended as an introductory examination of American women's history." Choice

“It is impossible to overstate the value of Nancy Hewitt’s Companion to American Women’s History. It guides us, with tremendous authority, into the vast world of American women’s history, as it has developed and as it stands at the beginning of the 21st century. But it is also a powerful intervention. Cutting across conventional categories and divisions, it recasts the field, raising provocative new questions, suggesting new approaches, and opening fresh paths to the future. I can’t imagine teaching or writing women’s history in the future without this Companion by my side.” Jacquelyn Hall, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

“The original essays in this volume, based on broad-ranging historiography, will be useful and provocative to both the beginning student and the seasoned scholar.” Nancy F. Cott, Harvard University

From the Publisher