Marsha Markman and Susan Corey are professors in the English Department at California Lutheran University. The late Jonathan Boe was a professor in the History Department. The three have also jointly edited Writing Women's Lives; American Women's History through Letters and Diaries (1999).

• Introduction. Part 1: The Colonial Period.Part 2: Era of the American Revolution.Part 3: The New Nation.Part 4: Slavery, Civil War, and Reconstruction.