Companion to American Women's History

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).

"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

• About the Contributors ixIntroduction xiiPART I THE COLONIAL ERA, 1600-1760 11 The Imperial Gaze: Native American, African American, and Colonial Women in European Eyes 3Kirsten Fischer2 Slavery and the Slave Trade 20Jennifer L. Morgan3 Contact and Conquest in Colonial North America 35Gwenn A. Miller4 Building Colonies, Defining Families 49Ann M. Little5 Sinners and Saints: Women and Religion in Colonial America 66Susan JusterPART II THE CREATION OF A NEW NATION, 1760-1880 816 A Revolution for Whom? Women in the Era of the American Revolution 83Jem E. Lewis7 Gender and Class Formations in the Antebellum North 100Catherine Kelly8 Religion, Reform, and Radicalism in the Antebellum Era 117Nancy A. Hewitt9 Conflicts and Cultures in the West 132Lisbeth Haas10 Rural Women 150Marli F. Weiner11 The Civil War Era 167Thavolia Glymph12 Marriage, Property, and Class 193Amy Dru Stanley13 Health, Sciences, and Sexualities in Victorian America 206Louise Michele NewmanPART III MODERN AMERICA, 1880-1990 22514 Education and the Professions 227Lynn D. Gordon15 Wage-earning Women 250Annelise Orleck16 Consumer Cultures 274Susan Porter Benson17 Urban Spaces and Popular Cultures, 1890-1930 295Nan Enstad18 Women on the Move: Migration and Immigration 312Ardis Cameron19 Women's Movements, 1880s-1920s 328Kirsten Delegard20 Medicine, Law, and the State: The History of Reproduction 348Leslie J. Reagan21 The Great Depression and World War II 366Karen Anderson22 Rewriting Postwar Women's History, 1945-1960 382Joanne Meyerowitz23 Civil Rights and Black Liberation 397Steven F. Lawson24 Second-wave Feminism 414Rosalyn Baxandall and Linda GordonBibliography: Selected Secondary Sources 433Compiled by April de StefanoIndex 481