Across half a century, from the division of Germany through the end of the Cold War, a cohort of thirty women from the small German town of Schönebeck in what used to be the GDR circulated among themselves a remarkable collective archive of their lives: a Rundbrief, or bulletin, containing hundreds of letters and photographs. This book draws on that unprecedented resource, complemented by a set of interviews, to paint a rich portrait of “ordinary” life in postwar Germany. It shows how these wo...
Empowering Stories of Strong Women"These soaring stories will inspire you to live your dreams!" -Becca Anderson, author of The Book of Awesome Women Finalist Pacific Book Awards 2018 Dorothy Parker observed, "It's a man's world;" the lady entrepreneurs and game-changers profiled in Women Who Launch would beg to differ. Unlike the matrons of the 1950s, these kick-ass females left their DNA in the annals of time. A history of women in business and beyond. Juliette Gordon Low showed what's good...
Honoring the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment to the Constitution, this "indispensable" book (Ellen Chesler, Ms. magazine) explores the full scope of the movement to win the vote for women through portraits of its bold leaders and devoted activists. Distinguished historian Ellen Carol DuBois begins in the pre-Civil War years with foremothers Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Sojurner Truth as she "meticulously and vibrantly chronicles" (Booklist) the links of t...
The women most crucial to the feminist movement that emerged in the 1960's arrived at their commitment and consciousness in response to the unexpected and often shattering experience of having their work minimized, even disregarded, by the men they considered to be their colleagues and fellow crusaders in the civil rights and radical New Left movements. On the basis of years of research, interviews with dozens of the central figures, and her own personal experience, Evans explores how the politi...
Prostitute, apostle, evangelist-the conversion of Mary Magdalene from sinner to saint is one of the Christian tradition's most compelling stories, and one of the most controversial. The identity of the woman-or, more likely, women-represented by this iconic figure has been the subject of dispute since the Church's earliest days. Much less appreciated is the critical role the Magdalene played in remaking modern Christianity.In a vivid recreation of the Catholic and Protestant cultures that emerge...
In the 1970s, feminist slogans proclaimed ""Sisterhood is powerful"", and women's historians searched through the historical archives to recover stories of solidarity and sisterhood. However, as feminist scholars have started taking a more intersectional approach - acknowledging that no woman is simply defined by her gender and that affiliations like race, class, and sexual identity are often equally powerful - women's historians have begun to offer more varied and nuanced narratives. The ten o...
The meteoric rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party cowed the masses into a sense of false utopia. During Hitler's 1932 election campaign over half those who voted for Hitler were women. Germany's women had witnessed the anarchy of the post-First World War years, and the chaos brought about by the rival political gangs brawling on their streets. When Hitler came to power there was at last a ray of hope that this man of the people would restore not only political stability to Germany but prosper...
A brand new uplifting, emotional and sometimes shocking memoir about life in London's oldest suburb, from the Queen of saga fiction Jean Fullerton . . . *One of my first East London memories is lying in bed, listening to the low boom of the barges as they nudged each other on the Thames, just half a mile away from our estate . . . Life in Cockney London was tough in the post-war years. The government's broken promises had led to a chronic housing shortage, rampant crime and families living in sq...
We Also Served is a social history of women's involvement in the First World War. Dr Vivien Newman disturbs myths and preconceptions surrounding women's war work and seeks to inform contemporary readers of countless acts of derring-do, determination, and quiet heroism by British women, that went on behind the scenes from 1914-1918. In August 1914 a mere 640 women had a clearly defined wartime role. Ignoring early War Office advice to 'go home and sit still', by 1918 hundreds of thousands of wom...
Agrarian Women, the Gender of Dairy Work, and the Two-Breadwinner Model in the Swedish Welfare State
by Lena Sommestad
In this volume, Lena Sommestad explores the significance of rural womanhood in the formation of Sweden’s gender-egalitarian welfare state in the early 20th century. Drawing on a rich array of documents, photographs, and interviews with women and men, she analyzes the changing gender division of labor in dairying and illuminates the dynamic processes and debates that shaped industrial workplaces. The book demonstrates the importance of rural women’s gainful labor and organized activism to Sweden’...
All-Girls Education from Ward Seminary to Harpeth Hall
by Mary Ellen Pethel
The Tudor period conjures up images of queens and noblewomen in elaborate court dress; of palace intrigue and dramatic politics. But if you were a woman, it was also a time when death during childbirth was rife; when marriage was usually a legal contract, not a matter for love, and the education you could hope to receive was minimal at best. Yet the Tudor century was also dominated by powerful and dynamic women in a way that no era had been before. Historian Elizabeth Norton explores the life...
Ever since there have been factories women and children have, more often than not, worked in those factories. What is perhaps less well known is that women also worked underground in coal mines and overground scaling the inside of chimneys. Young children were also put to work in factories and coalmines; they were deployed inside chimneys, often half-starved so that they could shin up ever narrower flues. This book charts the unhappy but aspirational story of women and children at work through...
_Balloonomania Belles_ reveals the astonishing stories of the fabulous female pioneers of balloon flight. More than a century before the first aeroplane women were heading for the heavens in crazy, inspired contraptions that could bring death or glory and all too often, both. Award-winning journalist Sharon Wright reveals their hair-raising adventures in a book that brings the stories of the feisty female ballooning heroines together for the first time. Women were in the vanguard of the Balloo...
Nine writers trace the public and private lives of nine sets of sisters. Artists, publishers, writers, educationalists, philanthropists, revolutionaries, suffragists — thinkers all. Independent women with hopes and ideals who overcame barriers, even within their own families, to their participation in public life. Their stories have often been overlooked by the mainstream historical record. These essays take readers on a journey through the centuries from the 1600s to the turbulent years of the...
If the Walls Could Speak
by Assistant Professor of History Anna Muller
Feelings and Work in Modern History (History of Emotions)
Work in all its guises is a fundamental part of the human experience, and yet it is a setting where emotions rarely take centre stage. This edited collection interrogates the troubled relationship between emotion and work to shed light on the feelings and meanings of both paid and unpaid labour from the late 19th to the 21st century. Central to this book is a reappraisal of ‘emotional labour’, now associated with the household and ‘life admin’ work largely undertaken by women and which reflec...
Psychological study of adjustment and creativity in working and non-working women
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “The fights against hunger, homelessness, poverty, health disparities, poor schools, homophobia, transphobia, and domestic violence are feminist fights. Kendall offers a feminism rooted in the livelihood of everyday women.” —Ibram X. Kendi, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist, in The Atlantic “One of the most important books of the current moment.”—Time “A rousing call to action... It should be required reading for everyone.”—Gabrie...
*FULLY REVISED AND UPDATED*Whether it was Churchill rousing the British to take up arms or the dream of Martin Luther King, Fidel Castro inspiring the Cuban revolution or Barack Obama on Selma and the meaning of America, speeches have profoundly influenced the way we see ourselves and society.Gathered here are some of the most extraordinary and memorable speeches of the last century - from Lenin to Reagan, Thatcher to Malala. Some are well known, others less so, but all helped form the world we...