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Title details for America's Women by Gail Collins - Available

America's Women

400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines

by Gail Collins
Jane Alexander
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available

Rich in detail, filled with fascinating characters, and panoramic in its sweep, this magnificent, comprehensive work tells for the first time the complete story of the American woman from the Pilgrims to the 21st-century

In this sweeping cultural history, Gail Collins explores the transformations, victories, and tragedies of women in America over the past 300 years. As she traces the role of females from their arrival on the Mayflower through the 19th century to the feminist movement of the 1970s and today, she demonstrates a boomerang pattern of participation and retreat.

In some periods, women were expected to work in the fields and behind the barricades—to colonize the nation, pioneer the West, and run the defense industries of World War II. In the decades between, economic forces and cultural attitudes shunted them back into the home, confining them to the role of moral beacon and domestic goddess. Told chronologically through the compelling true stories of individuals whose lives, linked together, provide a complete picture of the American woman's experience, Untitled is a landmark work and major contribution for us all.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 20, 2004

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780060746360
      • File size: 180487 KB
      • Duration: 06:16:00

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      August 11, 2003
      The basis of the struggle of American women, postulates Collins (Scorpion Tongues), "is the tension between the yearning to create a home and the urge to get out of it." Today's issues—should women be in the fields, on the factory lines and in offices, or should they be at home, tending to hearth and family?—are centuries old, and Collins, editor of the New York Times's editorial page, not only expertly chronicles what women have done since arriving in the New World, but how they did it and why. Creating a compelling social history, Collins discovers "it's less a war against oppressive men than a struggle to straighten out the perpetually mixed message about women's role that was accepted by almost everybody of both genders." These confusing messages are repeated over 400 years and are typified in the 1847 lecture of one doctor who stated that women's heads are "almost too small for intellect and just big enough for love" (ironically, around this time Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to graduate from an American medical school). The narratives are rich with direct quotes from both celebrated and common women, creating a clear picture of life in the 16th through 20th centuries, covering everyday (menstruation, birth control, cooking, cleanliness) and extraordinary (life during war, the abolition movement, fighting for the right to vote) topics. Beginning with Eleanor Dare and her 1587 sail to the colonies and ending with the 1970s, Collins's work is a fully accessible, and thoroughly enjoyable, primer of how American women have not only survived but thrived. Photos not seen by PW. Agent, Alice Martell. (On sale Sept. 23)Forecast:National print ads, appearances on the
      Today show and the
      CBS Early Show, a 25-city radio satellite tour and lecture tie-in appearances will help Collins reach the masses. Her book deserves a wide readership and is smooth enough to engage almost any kind of reader, academic or not.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Jane Alexander reads this all-encompassing history of American women with just the right amount of humor, indignation, wonder, and disbelief. Covering the history of women in the U.S.--from the time the first female European agreed to board a ship to the New World to modern times--each chapter looks at changing roles and mores through actual journal accounts and historical documents from real women's lives. What could have been a stiff history of feminism instead reads more like fiction, as Collins chronicles lives and times that changed dramatically over 400 years, thanks to the courage of the women who lived them. Alexander is a good match for Collins's style, lending an even pace, great warmth, and a slightly scholarly voice to the history. H.L.S. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine
    • Library Journal

      June 15, 2003
      From the first woman to serve as editorial page editor at the New York Times.

      Copyright 2003 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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