Portraits of American Women

Until recently the womanless American history was the norm. But in fact without a history of women we neglect consideration of gender dynamics sex roles and family and sexual relations -- the very fundamentals of human interaction. In Portraits of American Women editors G.J. Barker-Benfield and Catherine Clinton present twenty-five short essays on American women beginning with Pocahontas and ending with Betty Friedan.These essays aim to locate the histories of women and men together by period and to provide a sense of their continuities through the whole gallery of the American past. The editors selected women who made significant contributions in the public realm be they in the areas of art literature political engagement educational activities or reform movements. Included here are portraits of such women luminaries as Georgia O''Keeffe Margaret Mead Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Charlotte Perkins Gilman to name a few. Clearly women''s lives provide a vital perspective through which the great panorama of social change in the American past can be understood. Each portrait is fashioned to appeal to a wide range of readers and all include sound scholarship and accessible prose and raise provocative issues to illuminate women''s lives within a broad range of historical transformations.