U.S. History As Women's History: New Feminist Essays

by Linda K. Kerber (Editor), Alice Kessler-Harris (Editor), Kathryn Kish Sklar (Editor)

Overview

This outstanding collection of fifteen original essays represents innovative work by some of the most influential scholars in the field of women's history. Covering a broad sweep of history from colonial to contemporary times and ranging over the fields of legal, social, political, and cultural history, this book, according to its editors, 'intrudes into regions of the American historical narrative from which women have been excluded or in which gender relations were not thought to play a part.' The book is dedicated to pioneering women's historian Gerda Lerner, whose work inspired so many of the contributors, and it includes a bibliography of her works.

The contributors include:

Linda K. Kerber on women and the obligations of citizenship
Kathryn Kish Sklar on two political cultures in the Progressive Era
Linda Gordon on women, maternalism, and welfare in the twentieth century
Alice Kessler-Harris on the Social Security Amendments of 1939
Nancy F. Cott on marriage and the public order in the late nineteenth century
Nell Irvin Painter on 'soul murder' as a legacy of slavery
Judith Walzer Leavitt on Typhoid Mary and early twentieth-century public health
Estelle B. Freedman on women's institutions and the career of Miriam Van Waters
William H. Chafe on how the personal translates into the political in the careers of Eleanor Roosevelt and Allard Lowenstein
Jane Sherron De Hart on women, politics, and power in the contemporary United States
Barbara Sicherman on reading Little Women
Joyce Antler on the Emma Lazarus Federation's efforts to promulgate women's history
Amy Swerdlow on Left-feminist peace politics in the cold war
Ruth Rosen on the origins of contemporary American feminism among daughters of the fifties
Darlene Clark Hine on the making of Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807844953
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	03/20/1995
Series:	Gender and American Culture
Edition description:	1
Pages:	488
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.09(d)

About the Author

Linda K. Kerber, May Brodbeck Professor of History at the University of Iowa, is author of Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America.

Alice Kessler-Harris, professor of history at Rutgers University, is author of Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States.

Kathryn Kish Sklar, Distinguished Professor of History at the State University of New York, Binghamton, is author of Florence Kelley and the Nation's Work: The Rise of Women's Political Culture, 1830-1900.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

U.S. History as Women's History is an impressive contribution to the pursuit of knowledge. Buy it, read it, assign it, and use it.—North Carolina Historical Review



[An] exciting collection of feminist writings by some of the most acute historians writing today. . . . This is a collection of work of inestimable worth and interest, valuable for all American historians, not only feminists.—Journal of Southern History



There are many lessons for historians and political activists in this valuable collection. It succeeds in celebrating the power of gender analysis and demonstrating that women's contribution must be seen and taught as an essential part of U.S. history.—Women's Review of Books



U.S. History as Women's History is theoretically literate without being highly theorized. . . . It demonstrates the extraordinary importance of analyzing gender within historically specific contexts also shaped by race, class, political structures, and culture. . . . The result is a richly dynamic view of the past, which no brief summary can convey. . . . This is history that matters, that makes a difference.—Journal of American History



An evocative and stirring collection of essays. Every scholar and activist concerned about public life and social change, feminist consciousness and empowerment, civil rights, human rights, and dignity for all people, will want to read and ponder this book.—Blanche Wiesen Cook, author of Eleanor Roosevelt



This evocative and stirring collection of essays to honor Gerda Lerner, a foremost pioneer of feminist and multiracial history, does full justice to the range of her challenging vision: remove barriers, think boldly, understand power, end the silences, transform the margins, make a difference. Like the woman it honors, this collection is a work of profound integrity: courageous, path-breaking, powerful, important. Every scholar and activist concerned about public life and social change, feminist consciousness and empowerment, civil rights, human rights, and dignity for all people, will want to read and ponder this book.—Blanche Wiesen Cook, author of Eleanor Roosevelt [short version; doesn't include Gerda Lerner refs; for ads & pb]

Editorial Reviews

An impressive contribution to the pursuit of knowledge. Buy it, read it, assign it, and use it.

"North Carolina Historical Review"

This is a collection of work of inestimable worth and interest, valuable for all American historians, not only feminists.

"Journal of Southern History"

This is history that matters, that makes a difference.

"Journal of American History"

"An impressive contribution to the pursuit of knowledge. Buy it, read it, assign it, and use it.

"North Carolina Historical Review""

"This is a collection of work of inestimable worth and interest, valuable for all American historians, not only feminists.

"Journal of Southern History""

"This is history that matters, that makes a difference.

"Journal of American History""

There are many lessons for historians and political activists in this valuable collection.

"Women's Review of Books"

From the Publisher