BOOKS:
Bacon, Jacqueline. The Humblest May Stand Forth: Rhetoric, Empowerment, and Abolition. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2002.
"This book by Jacqueline Bacon studies the rhetoric of African-American men, African-American women, and white women abolitionists. Bacon assumes that a complete account of abolitionism requires more than an analysis of the dominant discourse produced by white men. In her view, this discourse does not merely reflect the circumstances of its privileged authors; it also gives white men undue credit and furthers the misapprehension that women and African Americans were passive recipients of abolitionist aims." (Abstract adapted from a review by Nina Baym, American Historical Review 108 (Dec. 2003):1453.) Bacon is an independent scholar with a Ph.D. in English from the University of Texas at Austin.
Collins, Gail. America's Women: Four Hundred Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines. New York: William Morrow, 2003.
“America's Women tells the story of more than four centuries of history. It features a stunning array of personalities, from the women peering worriedly over the side of the Mayflower to feminists having a grand old time protesting beauty pageants and bridal fairs. Courageous, silly, funny, and heartbreaking, these women shaped the nation and our vision of what it means to be female in America. [The author] begins with the lost colony of Roanoke and the early southern "tobacco brides" who came looking for a husband and sometimes -- thanks to the stupendously high mortality rate -- wound up marrying their way through three or four. Spanning wars, the pioneering days, the fight for suffrage, the Depression, the era of Rosie the Riveter, the civil rights movement, and the feminist rebellion of the 1970s, America's Women describes the way women's lives were altered by dress fashions, medical advances, rules of hygiene, social theories about sex and courtship, and the ever-changing attitudes toward education, work, and politics.” (Adapted from the book jacket summary) Collins is a political columnist and head of the editorial board at The New York Times.
Flexner, Eleanor. Century of Struggle: The Woman's Rights Movement in the United States. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975.
"[This book] tells the story of one of the great social movements in American history. The struggle for women's voting rights was one of the longest, most successful, and in some respects most radical challenges ever posed to the American system of electoral politics. It is difficult to imagine now a time when women were largely removed by custom, practice, and law from the formal political rights and responsibilities that supported and sustained the nation's young democracy. For sheer drama the suffrage movement has few equals in modern American political history." (Abstract adapted from the book’s Preface by Ellen Fitzpatrick)
Jeffrey, Julie Roy. The Great Silent Army of Abolitionism: Ordinary Women in the Antislavery Movement. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998.
"Looking chronologically at female abolitionists and their activities from the early days of the antislavery movement through the 1860s, Jeffrey shows how women participated in all aspects of antislavery work and how they learned to think and act like politically aware citizens of the republic. Jeffrey's book, like other excellent offerings in women's history, does more than show the ubiquitous presence of women in American life and demonstrates how women have fundamentally shaped the contours of American society and American history. Significantly, too, Jeffrey places free black women in prominent positions throughout her study. Rather than accept standard accounts, which relegate African American women to secondary positions in the largely white movement, the author considers the unique problems and circumstances that shaped black women's participation in abolitionist work.” (Adapted from a review by Nina Silber, published in The Historian 62 (Summer 2000): 851-5. Jeffrey is a professor of history at Goucher College.
Runyon, Randolph and William Albert Davis. Delia Webster and the Underground
Railroad. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1996.
"Runyon has successfully extracted this very readable narrative of antislavery activities, clarifying and tying together a mass of disjointed and contradictory primary sources. Delia Webster, a teacher from Vermont, moved to Kentucky and in 1844 helped Methodist minister Calvin Fairbank transport the slave Lewis Hayden and his family to Ohio. Hayden went on to become a prominent abolitionist and businessman in Boston. Webster and Fairbank were arrested and imprisoned in Kentucky. Webster was later pardoned and released, and she secretly continued to assist runaway slaves, although her reputation, livelihood, and property were under constant attack. Webster's story illustrates the complexities of living within a community while subverting its laws." (From a review by Wendy Knickerbocker published in the Library Journal 121 (June 1996): 76.) Runyon is a professor of French at Miami University of Ohio.
Terborg-Penn, Rosalyn. African American Women in the Struggle for the Vote, 1850-1920. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998.
"Rosalyn Terborg-Penn draws from original documents to take a comprehensive look at the African American women who fought for the right to vote. She analyzes the women's own stories, and examines why they joined and how they participated in the U.S. women's suffrage movement. Not all African American women suffragists were from elite circles. Terborg-Penn finds representation by working-class and professional women, from all parts of the nation, Some employed radical, others conservative, means to gain the right to vote. Black women, however, were unified in working to use the ballot to improve not only their own status, but the lives of black people in their communities. Following the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, state governments in the South enacted policies, which disfranchised African American women. Many white suffragists closed their eyes to these discriminatory acts. Terborg-Penn shows how every political and racial effort to keep African American women disfranchised met with their active resistance until black women finally achieved full citizenship." (Abstract from the back cover of the book) Terborg-Penn is a professor of history at Morgan State University.
ARTICLES:
Atkin, Andrea M. "When Pincushions are Periodicals: Women’s Work, Race and Material Object in Female Abolitionism." ATQ 11 (June 1997):93-114.
"Focuses on the use of small domestic objects by abolitionist women in America to promote their anti-slavery slogans. Deployment of abolitionism via the character of pincushions and needle books as innocuous and homely objects; Feminized rhetoric of sympathy as the basis of abolitionist objects; Moral, social and political functions of the objects used by abolitionist women.” (Abstract from Inspire) Atkin is a professor of women’s studies at Wake Forest University.
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Burkhalter, Nancy. "Women’s Magazines and the Suffrage Movement: Did They Help?" Journal of American Culture 19 (Summer 1996):13-25.
"Focuses on women's magazines in the United States and how they have dealt with the topic woman suffrage. Reference to the magazines `Ladies' Home Journal' and `Good Housekeeping'; How these two publications have dealt with woman suffrage; Description of various women's magazines; Reproduction of their articles on woman suffrage; Debate as to why a large number of women's magazines shy away from covering this important issue." (Abstract from Inspire) Burkhalter is a rofessor of English at the University of Colorado, Denver
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Hoffert, Sylvia D. "Theoretical Issues Jane Grey Swisshelm, Elizabeth Keckley, and the Significance of Race Consciousness in American Women’s History." Journal of Women’s History 13 (Fall 2001):8-34..
"Focuses on the issues related to race and gender in women's history in the United States. Information on the life experiences of white and free Jane Grey Swisshelm and enslaved mulatto Elizabeth Keckley; Description of Keckley's slavery; Significance of emancipation for Keckley; Opinion of Swisshelm on the similarity between marriage and slavery." (Abstract from Inspire) Hoffert is a professor of history and women’s studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Access : This article is available online through Inspire: http://search.epnet.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=afh&an=5348076&loginpage=login.asp&site=ehost&scope=site
Holton, Sandra Stanley. “To Educate Women into Rebellion: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and
the Creation of a Transatlantic Network of Radical Suffragists.” American Historical Review 99 (Oct. 1994): 1112-37.
“Focuses on suffragist movements in the United States in the 19th century. Emphasis on coverture's equal importance with enfranchisement; Full citizenship of women; Militancy as a direct import to the United States from Great Britain; Supporter of women's rights; National manners and conventions.” (Abstract from Inspire) Holton was a Fellow, University of Adelaide, Australia, 1990 and 1992.
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Kaplan, Amy. "Manifest Domesticity." American Literature 70 (Sept. 1998):581-
605.
"Focuses on the concept of separate spheres in American culture in the nineteenth century. Examination of the notion of domestic and foreign policy; How domesticity ruled the writing and culture of middle-class women from the 1830s through the 1850s; Reference to the settlement of the Africans in America and the concept of African colonization.” (Abstract from Inspire) Kaplan is a professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania.
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Moore, Sarah J. "Making a Spectacle of Suffrage: The National Women Suffrage Pageant,
1913." Journal of American Culture 20 (Spring 1997):89-104.
"Provides information about the National Women Suffrage Pageant in 1913 sponsored by the National American Women Suffrage Association. Analysis on the pageant craze that swept United States; Focus of the pageants staged by the American Pageant Association (APA); Significance of Alice Paul on National Women Suffrage Pageant; Two elements of the pageant." (Abstract from Inspire) Moore is a assistant professor of art history at the University of Arizona.
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Offen, Karen. "Women and the Question of 'Universal' Suffrage in 1848: A Transatlantic Comparison of Suffragist Rhetoric." NWSA Journal 11 (Spring 1999):150-178.
"Compares the origins and histories of women suffrage in France and the United States. Abolition of slavery and introduction of 'universal' suffrage by the revolutionary French Second Republic in 1848; Re-establishment of vital aspects of the history of women suffrage; Similarities of the rhetorics of feminism in the two countries; Arguments on the Declaration of Sentiments. (Abstract from Inspire) Offen is a historian affiliated with the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, Stanford University.
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Thurner, Manuela. "'Better Citizens Without the Ballot': American Anti-Suffrage Women
and Their Rationale During the Progressive Era."Journal of Women’s History 5 (Spring 1993):33- 61.
"Examines anti-suffragist women, or women who opposed their own enfranchisement in the United States during the start of the 20th century. Political and social dimensions of the suffrage fight; Concepts and paradigms of women's history; Ways in which female anti-suffragists portrayed themselves as in line with and in favor of progressive reform and female activism." (Abstract from Inspire)Thurner was a Fellow with the German Historical Institute at Yale University, 1993.
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Zink-Sawyer, Beverly A. "From Preachers to Suffragists: Enlisting the Pulpit in the Early
Movement for Women’s Rights." ATQ 14 (Sept. 2000):193-210.
"Focuses on the role of preaching in the movement for women's suffrage in the United States in the 1800s. Evidences of the prominent role of church leaders in woman's rights issues; Names of liberal clergymen who became public advocates for woman's rights; Details on the contributions of preacher Antoinette Brown."(Abstract from Inspire) Zink-Sawyer ia an associate professor of preaching and worship at Union Theological Seminary & Presbyterian School of Christian Education.
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ADDITIONAL READINGS:
Levin, Phyllis Lee. Abigail Adams: a Biography. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987.
Berry, Kathleen. Susan B. Anthony: a Biography of a Singular Feminist. New York: New
York University Press, 1988.
Griffith, Elisabeth. In Her Own Right: the Life of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1984.
Oates, Stephen B. A Woman of Valor: Clara Barton and the Civil War. New York: Free
Press, 1994.
LaPlante, Eve. American Jezebel: the Uncommon Life of Anne Hutchinson, the Woman
Who Defied the Puritans. San Francisco: Harper, 2004.
Bacon, Margaret Hope. Valiant Friend: the Life of Lucretia Mott. New York: Walker,
1980.
Bohrer, Melissa Lukeman. Glory, Passion, and Principle: the Story of Eight Remarkable
Women at the Core of the American Revolution. New York: Atria Books, 2003. [includes Molly Pitcher]
Young, Alfred Fabian. Masquerade: the Life and Times of Deborah Sampson, Continental
Soldier. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004.
Hoffert, Sylvia D. Jane Grey Swisshelm: an Unconventional Life, 1815-1884. Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 2004.
Painter, Nell Irvin. Sojourner Truth: a Life, a Symbol. New York: W.W. Norton, 1996.
Gates, Henry Louis. The Trials of Phillis Wheatley: America's First Black Poet and Her
Encounters with the Founding Fathers. New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2003.
Richards, Jeffery H. Mercy Otis Warren. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1995.
RECOMMENDED SOURCES:
National Women’s History Project
http://www.nwhp.org/
American Women’s History: a Research Guide
http://www.mtsu.edu/~kmiddlet/history/women.html
National Women’s History Museum
http://www.nmwh.org/
Smithsonian Institution
http://www.si.edu
Library of Congress
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/
Places Where Women Made History (National Park Service)
http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/pwwmh/
