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Summary: Best Book I Have Ever Read on the History of America's Women
Review: "America's Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, and Helpmates" is a great read for all of those who want a long, detailed book on American women history. I don't believe Gail Collins failed to mention anything (or at least what has been recorded) important in women's rights, etc. It starts with the women in the Mayflower and also the Colonial times, the early 1800s, the Civil War period, etc, etc. Although I was busy these past 2 and 1/2 days, I managed to finish this book during that time. (I could not put it down!) Highly recommend!
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Summary: My review of America's Women
Review: America's Women is the most comprehensive, informative, and entertaining book about the history of women I have ever read. There are many achievements by female pioneers I never even heard of. Nellie Bly was a newspaper reporter who became a national celebrity when she went around the world in 80 days in 1888. Sarah Josepha Hale became the first female editor of a fashion and advice magazine in 1836. Phillis Wheatley was an extraordinary female slave who learned to speak fluent English in a year and a half. She was the first American writer to achieve international fame with her poetry. She was also credited in persuading George Washington to allow black men to serve in the Continetal Army. I also learned about Ellen Swallow Richards who became the founder of home economics in the early 20th century Girls were able to take chemistry, biology, and geology classes under her theory that it would help them become better homemakers.The causes that women in history have fought for are logical, diverse, and interesting. Women have fought for the right to vote, the prohibition of alcohol, and the sexual purity of men which I found interesting. Women also won the right to schooling during the Revolutionary War which I never knew. There were some people I only recoginized by name in this book. However, after reading about their accomplishments, I had a better understanding of what their influence was. Jane Addams was the founder of a housing settlement called Hull House in Chicago. She provided housing for thousands of poor people and immigrants in the early part of the 20th century. Eleanor Roosevelt was a model for future first ladies. She wanted to give black people equal access to government services. She aimed to improve housing conditions for all people. She seeked for ways to stimulate the economy during the Great Depression and World War 2. America's Women covers every subject related to women with such depth and accuracy. Gail Collins really traces well how the attitudes about education, women in the work place, family, and even sex has evolved over 400 years. Today women are more educated and more self confident about their decisions than ever before. They have made a mark in every field of endeavor. America's Women is an excellent book.
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Summary: A Seductive and Sprawling Historical Romp
Review: Forget Hillary Clinton, Madonna, Queen Latifah, and Diane Sawyer. Today's media magnets are nothing compared to the forthright ladies and rustic women who helped create the United States of America. The names we should know are Eleanor Dare, Temperance Flowerdew, the Brent sisters, Mary Johnson, Susan Blunt, Eliza Lucas, Phillis Wheatley, Deborah Sampson Gannett, Sarah Hale, Katy Ferguson, Maria Chapman, Mary Ann Bickerdyke, and Jane Addams, to name just a few of the thousand women Gail Collins has put on display in the seductive and sprawling historical romp AMERICA'S WOMEN. From the Victorian age to the Age of Aquarius, this ambitious volume brings to life the brave, selfless and patriotic ladies who stood in front of, on top of, in spite of and sometimes even behind the men America still stubbornly celebrates as the sole defenders of freedom. So richly filled with newly uncovered historical fact and biographical detail, the book is a fantastic time machine, beginning in braless 1587 and ending in the bra-burning era of 1960-1970. Collins's effort is unique because it is not just another encyclopedic listing of famous women of the ages that choke our library shelves. With a diary quote opening each section, AMERICA'S WOMEN relies on the original sources to tell the tales, interspersed with spicy and informative editorialization from Collins. "One of the tricks to being a great historical figure is to leave behind as much information as possible," the author explains, revealing that primary source material was drawn from the New Englanders' "winning habit of keeping diaries." However, Collins, herself a noteworthy figure as the first female editorial page editor for the New York Times, digs deep to chronicle the lives of the women who "left behind almost nothing of their voices," like the Native Americans who met the first English settlers. Collins introduces Eleanor Dare, purportedly the first female colonist; Margaret and Mary Brent, unmarried sisters who ran the colony of Maryland during wartime, Margaret being the first woman to demand the right to vote in the Assembly; and Temperance Flowerdew, the wife of two of the Virginia colony's governors. Mary Johnson arrived in Virginia in 1620 as the first African American woman. Susan Blunt was appointed at just 10 years old as housekeeper for twin girls and an elderly man. It's hard to imagine an elementary school girl today even attempting Blunt's duties, which began each day at 5 a.m., toting water from a well, making breakfast, caring for the old man, making dinner, cleaning and mending. "As her reward, she received enough money to buy a new apron," Collins reports. No Playstation, Eminem, air conditioning, hair dryers, cell phones, or Powerpuff Girls. While cleaning and mending might sound easy enough, Collins continually offers solid doses of colonial reality: "Washing clothes was an arduous process... The laundress scrubbed and pounded the clothes in the tubs, working up to her elbows in hot water, sometimes for hours on end." Then there was the farm work, the animals, the children, the weather, and the husband, who was off politicking or fighting and dying in a war. Eliza Lucas ran her father's Charleston plantation and cared for her invalid mother and young sister; Phillis Wheatley, a 13-year-old slave, published her poetry in the New England newspapers, and Deborah Sampson Gannett pretended to be a man so she could fight alongside her husband in the Revolutionary War. Sarah Josepha Hale was a powerful magazine editor in the 1830s, slave Katy Ferguson established New York's first Sunday school, Maria Weston Chapman led abolitionists, Mary Ann Bickerdyke took control in Illinois to aid the soldiers, and Jane Addams was a famous journalist who exposed the social wrongs that crippled the nation. Collins makes each page exciting in this powerfully moving, funny and emotionally charged tour of our past, making the perfect history book for the millennium. The brisk narrative suffers only by the author's lack of attention to early lesbianism, which is not even mentioned until page 256, and overly extensive coverage of the Salem Witch Trials, with no reference to the telling theory that the children's claims of witchcraft might have been caused by hallucinations brought on by eating LSD-laced rye bread. While Mormon renouncer and author Ann Eliza Webb Young, the wealthy beauty product mongering Seven Sutherland Sisters, and pioneer obstetrician Peggy Warne are unfortunately missing from AMERICA'S WOMEN, there are still plenty of heroines here who contemplated, labored, mothered, lobbied, wrote, spoke out, fought, and even gave their lives to make far more than just a village. --- Reviewed by Brandon M. Stickney
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Summary: Very moving and downright funny!
Review: Heard the taped version of AMERICA'S WOMEN: 400 YEARS OF DOLLS, DRUDGES, HELPMATES, AND HEROINES narrated by Jane Alexander . . . don't put off by the title; it is a fascinating account of the women's movement that wasn't boring in the least . . . in fact, I found parts very moving; others were downright funny.
It made me greater appreciate the role women have played in our country . . . in particular, I was knocked for a loop when I read about all that women had to do in colonial America while also raising families that very often included 10 children or more . . . they not only had to care for the children, but they had to grow the vegetables, cook the meals, make the clothing, and perform so
many other tasks that I'm getting tired even typing this.
I liked learning more about the epic struggle faced by Rosa Parks to help integrate our country, yet found it equally thought-provoking to hear the story of Ann Fowler . . . in 1637 in Virginia, she was sentenced to 20 lashes after she suggested that Adam Throwgood (a country justice) could
"kiss my arse" . . . the states' General Assembly then ruled that husbands would no longer be liable for damages caused by their outspoken wives.
Unlike some other books of this nature, there was no male-bashing;
in fact, Chubby Checker gets praised for helping advance the women's movement . . . it seems "The Twist" was the first time that women could dance without needing a male to lead.
Jane Alexander's excellent narration added to my enjoyment
of AMERICA'S WOMEN.
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Summary: America's women
Review: I am a young women that came across this book on the library shelf. Not sure if I would be interested in reading it since I have never really taken an interest in history...I started to thumb through it and am pleased to say that I took the book home. This book has been a real eye opener for me and I look forward to each story about every remarkable women in this book. I am a new fan of this type of history thanks to this book.
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Summary: America's women
Review: I am a young women that came across this book on the library shelf. Not sure if I would be interested in reading it since I have never really taken an interest in history...I started to thumb through it and am pleased to say that I took the book home. This book has been a real eye opener for me and I look forward to each story about every remarkable women in this book. I am a new fan of this type of history thanks to this book.
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Summary: Don't need to like history to like this book.
Review: I am not a history buff nor did I take any feminist studies in college, yet I loved reading this book. Gail Collins presents a vivid, albit uneavenly detailed "panorama" of women in America over a 400 year span. Much of the material comes from letters, diaries or oral histories, in addition to newspaper reports, so the reader feels like she's actually part of these women's lives rather than just reading about them.
What stood out to me was how much more independent and courageous America's women have been from the start of this country compared to their couterparts in the "old world." I particularly liked how Collins did not romanticize women or obscure the failings of many of them. Women's impact on American culture is so much more obvious in Collin's account than anything I read in a history class.
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Summary: Incredibly Interesting
Review: I can hardly put it down; So many brave and resourceful women; many fascinating details about life on the frontier or on the wagon train (with water being scarce and laundry and all-day chore anyway, women just used to let baby diapers dry out and then re-use them)! As soon as this book is out in paperback I am going to buy 6 or 7 copies to give to my mother, sisters and girlfriends.
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Summary: A Book for all of America's women
Review: I found this book to be highly informative, resounding, and enjoyable to read. Woman are often short changed in history and this book duly affords them the spotlight that has been conspicuously denied them until now. Gail Collins has a witty style that makes this book hard to put down, and it contains interesting ancedotes of women that made their mark throughout the pages of time. I do not only highly recommend this book to history buffs, but also to all book lovers in general.
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Summary: A Real Treat
Review: I just finished this book on the bus to work this morning. What a treat. I'm only mainly annoyed at a friend of mine, who, upon hearing my daily raves, would say, "Hello, didn't you learn about this in high school history?" Yes, I remember many of these women's achievements outlined in sidebars in history books. Gail Collins, meanwhile, devotes entire chapters to them.
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