Mary P. Ryan is director of women's studies and professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of the prize-winning Cradle of the Middle Class, Womanhood in America, and Empire of the Mother.

An immensely ambitious, complicated and pioneering study that is sure to have a major impact on historians... [The] book is a series of essays that trace the representation of gender, as well as women's actual participation in public life. Women's Review of Books Ryan's elegant essays sketch a chronology of changing gender symbology and contribute to our understanding of the cultural construction of boundaries between public and private. Historians and feminists will pursue for some time her questions about the process and consequences of excluding women from the public arena and their striving for participation in it. -- Lee Chambers-Schiller American Historical Review

• Preface and Acknowledgments Chapter 1. Ceremonial Space: Public Celebration and Private Women Chapter 2. Everyday Space: Gender and Geography of the Public Chapter 3. Political Space: Of Prostitutes and Politicians Chapter 4. The Public Sphere: Of Handkerchiefs, Brickbats, and Women's RightsEpilogueNotes Index

Mary P. Ryan is director of women's studies and professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of the prize-winning Cradle of the Middle Class, Womanhood in America, and Empire of the Mother.

An immensely ambitious, complicated and pioneering study that is sure to have a major impact on historians... [The] book is a series of essays that trace the representation of gender, as well as women's actual participation in public life. Women's Review of Books Ryan's elegant essays sketch a chronology of changing gender symbology and contribute to our understanding of the cultural construction of boundaries between public and private. Historians and feminists will pursue for some time her questions about the process and consequences of excluding women from the public arena and their striving for participation in it. -- Lee Chambers-Schiller American Historical Review

• Preface and Acknowledgments Chapter 1. Ceremonial Space: Public Celebration and Private Women Chapter 2. Everyday Space: Gender and Geography of the Public Chapter 3. Political Space: Of Prostitutes and Politicians Chapter 4. The Public Sphere: Of Handkerchiefs, Brickbats, and Women's RightsEpilogueNotes Index

Mary P. Ryan is director of women's studies and professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of the prize-winning Cradle of the Middle Class, Womanhood in America, and Empire of the Mother.

An immensely ambitious, complicated and pioneering study that is sure to have a major impact on historians... [The] book is a series of essays that trace the representation of gender, as well as women's actual participation in public life. Women's Review of Books Ryan's elegant essays sketch a chronology of changing gender symbology and contribute to our understanding of the cultural construction of boundaries between public and private. Historians and feminists will pursue for some time her questions about the process and consequences of excluding women from the public arena and their striving for participation in it. -- Lee Chambers-Schiller American Historical Review

• Preface and Acknowledgments Chapter 1. Ceremonial Space: Public Celebration and Private Women Chapter 2. Everyday Space: Gender and Geography of the Public Chapter 3. Political Space: Of Prostitutes and Politicians Chapter 4. The Public Sphere: Of Handkerchiefs, Brickbats, and Women's RightsEpilogueNotes Index