Reviews (1)

A Solid Academic Piece
Having just read this book for an upcoming graduate level women's history course I can highly recommend it for students and others.Read more

Subjects:  1. 19th century    2. History    3. History - U.S.    4. History: American    5. Prostitutes    6. Prostitution    7. Social History    8. United States - 19th Century/Old West    9. West (U.S.)    10. Women's Studies - History    11. USA    12. Women's studies   

Reviews (6)

New Burlesque Represents!
I may be biased, since I appear in this book, but if I weren't proud to be a part of it I wouldn't recommend it!
Absolutely Delicious
Not only does this book serve as delicious eye candy, but the author does an amazing job interlacing facts with true experiences capturing the crazed phenomenon of burlesque revival.I really admire the energy that comes across in Baldwin's writing it makes me want to go out and try it!I would recommend this to all of you feminists out there who also like showing a little leg.

a worthy topic, but not the comprehensive guide it could be
As a costuming student, amateur burlesque researcher, and preformer, I was excited to see someone devote a book exclusively to new burlesque.The book has some cute pictures and a few quotes from some of the rising stars of the scene, but unfortunately, the overall content is shallow and the structure is jumbled. The format of the text is too jumpy to really provide a reader with a timeline and often repeats itself.Some rigorous cutting-and-pasting would have helped immesely on that front, but the more suble deficiency is the lack of academic analysis or critical commentary. It reads like a high school book report, merely stating facts and names, but not tying them together.Almost anyone could have researched and written this book by simply looking at a few burlesque troupes' websites.In fact, I wonder if that is what happened.
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Subjects:  1. 20th century    2. Burlesque (Theater)    3. Dance - History    4. General    5. History    6. Performing Arts    7. Performing Arts/Dance    8. Popular Culture - General    9. Striptease    10. United States    11. Vaudeville/Cabaret/Burlesque    12. Women's Studies - History    13. Dance    14. Performing Arts / General   

Reviews (2)

Scholarly and Enlightening
Elizabeth Fox-Genovese has produced a very scholarly and enlightening examination of women of the old South. In vivid detailed with painstaking research, she presents the daily lives of women, black and white, within the plantation household. Though written from an academic perspective, the author has succeeded in presenting her research in an entertaining and even captivating narrative style. For those looking for the behind the scenes lifestyle of unknown women of the South, this is the one book of choice.
An interesting and very good attempt
This is an impressive and large-scale achievement. I would have appreciated more acknowledgment of the role that white male eurocentric paradigms played (and continue to play) in the south and oppresion of Womenof Color. Overall, a good starting place. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. African American women    2. History    3. History - U.S.    4. History: American    5. Plantation life    6. Southern States    7. United States - General    8. United States - State & Local - South    9. Women's Studies - History    10. Women, White    11. American history: c 1800 to c 1900    12. Black studies    13. Feminism    14. Social Science / Women's Studies    15. Social history    16. USA    17. class relations; women; slaveholders; slave; gender; class relations; southern women; northern women; American South; African American; American Studies   

Reviews (8)

Frontier Kansas
I read somewhere that a statistically large number of prominent Americans were born in 19th century Kansas.That was perhaps a result of the hard, but ultimately rewarding pioneer life that is described in these pages.Kansas and the West a century ago were in the vanguard of social innovation and progressive politics in the U.S.
Determination and Faith
Since I found that my great grandmother's brother and sister went on a Wagon Train to Nebraska from Bedford County PA in the 1870's and 1880's, I have benn interested in reading about Pioneer Families. This book was actual experiences of the women who survived in the early settlements of this country. How can we not be proud of their determination to survive and how much their faith in God played a role in their daily lives?

". . . the legend wears its Sunday best."
As Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s says in his forward to Stratton's Pioneer Women: Voices from the Kansas Frontier our historical record is built upon "important" people.People who leave records of their lives.For years, women, for the most part, left no such records (Unless of course, they were infamous, Americans seem able to recall the names of Lizzie Borden and Typhoid Mary without trouble.) In Pioneer Women, Stratton attempts to rectify this historical oversight by presenting scores of memoirs written by women who inhabited and helped push Kansas along from being a synonym for a luckless hardship filled land (We need to look no farther than Baum's using it for the earth-bound, twister-prone setting for his book, The Wizard of Oz) to a state whose women urged farmers to "raise less corn and more Hell" politically (13).
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Subjects:  1. Biography & Autobiography    2. Biography / Autobiography    3. Feminism & Feminist Theory    4. Frontier and pioneer life    5. General    6. History    7. Kansas    8. Pioneers    9. Reference    10. Sociology    11. Women    12. Women's Studies - History    13. Biography: general    14. History / General    15. Local history    16. Texas   

Reviews (5)

wonderful collection
I think this book is great....wonderful photos, interesting facts from ladies from the Victorian Era(which is a time in history, not a place or country)Great buy for fun women and history buffs!

Adventurous ladies rediscovered.
Amusing collection of mini biographies of various American ladies rather strangely described as being from the Victorian era(surely it must be called something else in America, i mean sorry but she wasn't your Queen, you know)Some of the ladies I had heard of, many I hadn't, all were fun to read about.The back of the book proclaims 150 Women gave Queen Victoria fits! even though the book contains at least 2 women whom Queen Victoria greatly admired.One is Annie Oakley,although Ms. Stephens describes the Queen as 'simpering' at her (I am confident that Queen Victoria never simpered in her life).The other is Harriet Beacher Stowe, whose novel Dred she prefered to Uncle Tom's Cabin, saying "how interested she was in Nina, how provoked when she died, and how angry that something dreadful did not happen to Tom Gordon".Queen Victoria was at least as interesting as any of the women in Autumn Stephens' book, and would I am sure have sympathised with at least some of them.She gave her name to an entire age in England (and apparently in America too!)

Witty and Wise!
I don't know what I expected but this is an extremely witty book. But it's also a very wise book. Stephens has written dozens and dozens of wonderful essays on some very remarkable women. I loved them all, but somehow I found myself lingering among those Controversial Curers and Ingenious Invalids! I must identify! Oh, dear, but then again, Charlotte Gilman Perkins is there, so what can I say? There are funny details, interesting facts, nice photographs and even quotes that will make your days pass by insober reflection. Don't let the wit overwhelm the sober. A wonderful edition for ALL collections on women in history. Now if only I could get my hands on one of Lydia Pinkham's cure for PMS! You can find her grave online too. She was a marvel! ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Biography    2. General    3. History - General History    4. Sociology    5. Sociology Of Women    6. United States    7. Women radicals    8. Women social reformers    9. Women's Studies - History    10. American history    11. Gender studies    12. Social history    13. USA   

Reviews (17)

Grateful for the enlightenment
No scholar here, (if I were I'd have written a book) so this book was very enlightening. Thrilled for the info. Wish it was mainstream knowledge.

Essential for reenactors portraying a woman in the ranks
Blanton gives us documented evidence of the many women who fought on both sides of the War Between the States, their motivations and how they hid their gender. Any reenactor who wants to portray a woman soldier should read this book, and it's also interesting for students of the war and those who insist women "can't hack it in combat."

slightly biased
this was an interesting book, but it does not contain hardly any information on women from the south. there are some opinions expressed that show the authors are biased toward the union. so if you are searching for information pertaining to the Confederate women, don't read this book. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. 19th century    2. Civil War, 1861-1865    3. History    4. History - General History    5. History - U.S.    6. History: American    7. Participation, Female    8. U.S. History - Civil War And Reconstruction (1860-1877)    9. United States    10. United States - Civil War    11. Women    12. Women In The U.S.    13. Women soldiers    14. Women's Studies - General    15. Women's Studies - History    16. History / United States / Civil War Period (1850-1877)   

Reviews (1)

alaskan women's suffrage
does anyone know if this book includes any information about women's suffrage in Alaska>we got the vote 7 years before national enfranchisement. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. General    2. History    3. History - General History    4. History: American    5. Political Process - Elections    6. Suffrage    7. United States    8. Women    9. Women And Politics    10. Women's Studies - History   

Reviews (4)

Great personal in-depth look
This isn't meant to be some exhaustive encyclopedia, but it's nevertheless a very solid thorough detailed account of what the women of the WWII generation went through, in many facets and fields.Besides just writing about the women in the military, in the factories, on the general homefront, and in the Japanese-American internment camps, there is also interesting insightful information on areas little covered, such as the women who worked at or who had husbands working at Los Alamos, prostitutes, women in right-wing pro-Fascist groups agitating against the American government, and spies.It's stunning to read about all the women of my grandmothers' generation had to struggle against to be accepted into the military, in factories, as professionals, in any capacity in fact besides that of wife, mother, sister, and girlfriend.Particularly horrifying was the section on the Victory Girls; the sexual double standard sent women (many of them proven innocent) suspected of passing VD to soldiers to jail, while giving these soldiers no punishment for cavorting with prostitutes and giving them the best care instead of forcing them to languish in dank unhygienic jail cells without medical attention.Blame the women and treat the men as innocent victims.Also shocking in modern times is how women believed to be lesbians in the military were treated, like they had a mental disorder and were deranged unnatural deviants, as well as how many women who had loyally punctually worked in the factories were handed their discharge slips on the day the boys came home.Still, even restrained by the double standard and beliefs of the era, these women had tasted freedom and greater possibilities, and thanks to everything they did, their knowledge of greater possibilities, they raised daughters who would help to bring about the womens' liberation movement in the next generation, knowing they could never go back to the limited world and possibilities that had existed prior to WWII.

from homemakers to movie stars....
Very informative book on the roles that American women took on during WWII. It showed the beginning of women becoming more empowered by having to work outside of the home. This book should be required reading in all U.S. History classes.

Astonishing
This is a unique compilation of astonishing research and Read more

Subjects:  1. History    2. History - Military / War    3. Military    4. Military - World War II    5. U.S. History - World War II (Domestic Aspects)    6. United States - 20th Century    7. United States - 20th Century/WWII    8. Women - 20th Century History    9. Women's Studies - General    10. Women's Studies - History    11. History / Military / World War II   

Reviews (1)

great resource and overview
I have used this book in research for my thesis on women classicalcomposers.This resource was valuable as a starting point and addressesthe ideas of what it is like to be a woman in the music business andincludes references to classical composers, conductors, performers, etc. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. General    2. History & Criticism - General    3. History and criticism    4. Music    5. Music/Songbooks    6. Women composers    7. Women musicians    8. Women's Studies - History    9. Cultural studies    10. Women's studies   

Reviews (7)

Good information but some bad theories
The author does provide good information on the status of women in the ancient world, but has some completely baseless theories. She tries to juxtapose the masculine Persian god Mithras with the feminine god Isis, claiming Isis was supressed and Mithras welcomed. The problem is, Mithrism, after Christianity and Judaism, was persecuted heaviest because it was though to indicate loyalty to Persia, Rome's enemy. Isis, on the other hand, after some early initial efforts to ban all foreign religions, was fully tolerated. It saw nothing like the persecution the other three religions saw. Also, she overstates Isis as a feminist figure. Most papyrus quotes from ancient Egypt have her worshiped as a traditional wife and mother goddess. All she has as proof of her contention that wasn't so is one Oxyrhyncus papyrus quote and a quote from the always unreliable Diodorus.

Outstanding Overview
I first read this book in highschool(Latin Class) back in 1985, and to this day, I still find it to be one of the best overviews on the lives of Classical Women ever. While there are some other good works out there, theya re few and far between, and many are not translated into English-which is a shame.
Impressive Work
I got in touch with Pomeroy work when I was a History student in 1993.It marked me because she was not interested in just repeat what authors just say about women in Greece and Rome.It's necessary to point that as a feminist she want to put in evidence contradictions about women roles and places.It's a very interesting feminist investigation. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Ancient - Greece    2. Feminism & Feminist Theory    3. Greece    4. History    5. History: World    6. Rome    7. Social conditions    8. Sociology    9. To 146 B.C    10. To 500    11. Women    12. Women's Studies - History    13. Feminism    14. History / Ancient / Greece    15. World history: BCE to c 500 CE   

Subjects:  1. 1755-1793    2. Biography    3. Europe - France    4. France    5. Gender Studies    6. General    7. History    8. History: World    9. Louis XVI, 1774-1793    10. Marie Antoinette,    11. Queen, consort of Louis XVI, K    12. Queen, consort of Louis XVI, King of France,    13. Queens    14. Sociology    15. Women's Studies - History    16. Biography: historical    17. European history: c 1750 to c 1900    18. History / France    19. Marie Antoinette    20. Rank & titles    21. Revolutions & coups    22. c 1700 to c 1800   

Reviews (1)

groundbreaking, paradigm shifting
Leading (and controversial) thinker Chizuko Ueno broke new ground in Japan and the world with this provocative view of how nationalism works to usurp individual identity and its violent implications for human behavior in war, and also in reacting to and attempting to heal from war. Ueno speaks of the wars and war crimes of the twentieth century, including the "comfort women" of WW2 and the rape camps of Bosnia.Her analysis and argument are particularly relevant to us now, as in some western countries, speaking out against war is deemed "unpatriotic" and therefore "bad" - the unquestioned nationalized identifications which she argues need be rethought. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Asia    2. Asia - Japan    3. Comfort women    4. History    5. Japan    6. Political Ideologies - Nationalism    7. Social Science    8. Sociology    9. Women    10. Women's Studies - General    11. Women's Studies - History    12. World War, 1939-1945    13. Nationalism    14. Women's studies   

Reviews (2)

Women's struggles: beyond the right to abortion
For a single-volume, in-depth history of women's struggles for reproductive freedom through out American history, college-level and many a public library holding will want to look at PREGNANCY AND POWER: A SHORT HISTORY OF REPRODUCTIVE POLITICS IN AMERICA. Historian Rickie Solinger argues that women's struggles go beyond the right for abortion: reproductive politics surfaced when slaveholders devised breeding schemes, the US government took Indian kids from families, and when doctors encouraged Latina women to be sterilized in the 1970s: thus PREGNANCY AND POWER embraces far more than the usual perspective.
An important, well written book
Pregnancy and Power is an eye-opening exploration of reproductive politics and should be read by anyone who cares about the social injustices women are subjected to in this regard. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Abortion    2. Abortion & Birth Control    3. Birth control    4. Gender Studies    5. Human reproduction    6. Political Science    7. Political aspects    8. Politics/International Relations    9. Reference    10. Sociology    11. United States    12. Women's Studies - General    13. Women's Studies - History    14. Human rights    15. Social Science / Abortion & Birth Control    16. Social history    17. UNITED STATES_POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT    18. USA    19. WOMEN'S RIGHTS   

Subjects:  1. 1865-1933    2. History    3. Political History    4. Politics and government    5. Social Science    6. Sociology    7. Suffrage    8. United States    9. United States - 20th Century    10. Women    11. Women's Studies - General    12. Women's Studies - History    13. Elections & referenda    14. Feminism    15. History / United States / General    16. History, American | Women    17. Social history    18. USA   

Reviews (3)

Women in the Revolution
This book captured the time period of the American Revolution and the role women played in it like no other book I have ever read.I appreciated the focus on particular individuals which really helped bring it to life for me.I recommend this book to anyone wanting to know more about what part women played during the American Revolution.I'm sure you will be both surprised and delighted at your findings.

Loved it!
Never in my history lessons have I heard these stories. The struggles of women during the American Revolution were many. I'm embarrassed that I never considered what they went through; partly because we have always been taught only about the hardships on the battlefield. But, in this book, you will read about the many woman who followed the soldiers (camp followers), women who had no other choice but maintain the farms during their husband's absence, women who volunteered in support of the war (spinners, etc), and general's wives who helped boost the soldiers' moral. There are many interesting facts about Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, and many other "celebrity" wives contributions during the war. A great book that I will talk about for a very long time.

A well-written and deftly executed narrative
Ask most people about women's involvement in the American Revolution and you are likely to hear about Betsy Ross or Molly Pitcher. But Ross may not have been the person who made the first American flag, and Molly Pitcher, says historian Carol Berkin, never existed --- she was an imaginative construct, comparable to World War II's Rosie the Riveter.
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Subjects:  1. Biography    2. History    3. History - General History    4. History - U.S.    5. History Of Women (General)    6. History: American    7. Participation, Female    8. Revolution, 1775-1783    9. U.S. History - Revolution And Confederation (1775-1789)    10. United States    11. United States - Revolutionary War    12. Women    13. Women's Studies - History    14. History / United States / Revolutionary Period (1775-1800)   

Reviews (1)

A great compilation of oral histories, but bad conclusions.
Excellent chapters on the behind the scenes aspect of the resistance, including social services, where women dominated the field. The book does not, however, include food riots and worker's strikes. These are two areasof resistance that women also participated in.Read more

Subjects:  1. Europe - France    2. France    3. History    4. History - Military / War    5. Military    6. Military - World War II    7. Underground movements    8. Women    9. Women - 20th Century History    10. Women's Studies - History    11. World War II - Europe    12. World War, 1939-1945    13. Biography: historical    14. Biography: political    15. Europe    16. European history: Second World War    17. History / Military / World War II    18. Second World War, 1939-1945    19. Terrorism, freedom fighters, armed struggle    20. Women's studies   

Subjects:  1. Bible    2. Bible - Biography - Old Testament    3. Bible - Study - Old Testament    4. Biography    5. Doctrines    6. Feminism    7. Judaism    8. Judaism - General    9. Judaism - History    10. O.T    11. Old Testament    12. Religion    13. Religion - Judaism    14. Religious aspects    15. Women In Judaism    16. Women in the Bible    17. Women's Studies - History    18. Religion / Judaism / History    19. Women's studies   

Reviews (2)

Nineteenth Century Religion and Activism in the Making
The nineteenth century was the most radical and revolutionary period for women in American society.Ann Braude's RADICAL SPIRITS:SPRITUALISM AND WOMEN'S RIGHTS IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA examines the development and progression of women's rights as it pertained to religion and spirituality; when combined, they provided women the pulpit and the voice to participate in a society where they had been previoulsy confined to duties in the home.Indeed, women and feminism emerged from the churches and beckoned to the calls from women seeking an outlet to be emancipated from both a hierarchical church environment and a patriarchal home environment.
Women Think They're Radical Today?!
I first met this book in a seminar about Spiritualist history, and was most impressed by the research and breadth of the coverage. I was also startled by the involvement of the Spiritualist movement in all the major reform movements of the 19th century. Change was happening everywhere in the lives of women! Dress reform, marriage reform, divorce reform to mention a few. Also the involvement of major figures working in the suffrage movement, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. In the mid-nineteenth century, women became the leaders on the Spiritualist platform, as mediums. They brought through the messages and information. From being in charge on the platform, they went into other areas where they were dominated by men and began to take more control. This book is the story of that tremendous period on change that has landed women where they are today. Today's women stand on the shoulders of those courageous women of the 19th century. Some one said to me,"If today's women were as radical as those women were, they would be chaining themselves to trees!" Enjoy! ... Read more

Subjects:  1. 19th century    2. General    3. History    4. Political Freedom & Security - Civil Rights    5. Religion    6. Sociology    7. Spiritualism - General    8. United States    9. United States - 19th Century    10. Women's Studies - General    11. Women's Studies - History    12. Women's rights and spiritualis    13. Women's rights and spiritualism    14. American history: c 1800 to c 1900    15. Civil rights & citizenship    16. Social history    17. Spirit communication & mediumship, spiritualism    18. USA    19. Women's studies    20. c 1800 to c 1900   

Editorial Review

Of all the documents of the Holocaust, this cookbook compiled from memory by the female prisoners at Terezin, a way station to Auschwitz, may be the most remarkable. The Terezin prisoners recalled and wrote down their recipes for chocolate torte, breast of goose, plum strudel, and other traditional dishes not because they thought they might ever need them--they were surviving on scraps and potato peels at the time--but as a testament to the future, so that their grandchildren might receive a fragment of their inheritance. The manuscript found its way in 1969 to Anny Stern, the daughter of Mina Pachter, whose poems on barracks life are also included. ... Read more

Reviews (7)

Haunting and Historical
This book is an amazing document and is a important part of holacaust literature. Furthemore it is most moving and keeps us connected to the past.

A unique book
This book is a unique combination of scholarship, history, and memory. Although it contains recipes, this is not in any traditional way a cookbook. In Memory's Kitchen is the moving story of how during World War II the women of the Terezin concentration camp spent evenings writing down recipes that reminded them of their previous 'real' lives: when they lived with and cooked for families and friends. They substituted memory for food and in doing so kept their humanity alive. The 'recipes' were smuggled out of the camp and years later found their way to the surviving daughter of one of the 'cooks.' Definitely worth reading.

Another insight
This deeply moving book doesn't pretend to be either a history, or a cookbook.A previously unknown kind of Holocaust literature, it presents itself, as its title implies, as a form of memoir, with all the flaws (inaccuracy being chief among them) and virtues (a vivid evocation of states of mind) of the genre.And there isn't a more telling example of the ravages of the Nazi death camps than the fact that these hungry, terrorized women of Terezin could not remember accurately recipes they had prepared countless times in their lives. Nor is there a more poignant witness to the indomitability of the human spirit than the determination of these women, as they confronted annihilation, to preserve some part of their culture, their memories of the past, their dreams of the future, by writing these recipes down.What a testimony that was to the power of food to nourish the soul as well as the body, and to the force of hope, for defying logic and experience they believed this "cookbook" might survive. That it did is a gift to us all. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Cookery    2. Cookery, Jewish    3. History - General History    4. History: World    5. Holocaust    6. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)    7. Jewish Holocaust    8. Regional & Ethnic - Jewish & Kosher    9. Theresienstadt (Concentration    10. Theresienstadt (Concentration camp)    11. Women's Studies - History    12. European history: Second World War    13. General cookery    14. Germany    15. History / Jewish    16. History of specific subjects    17. The Holocaust   

Reviews (1)

Readable--fun--pathbreaking
Enstad takes U.S. women's history in important new directions because she understands how young working-class women created their own class-conscious identity in terms made available by consumer culture. In this context hats, shoes and pulp-fiction gave working-class women fun, spunky ways to of asserting themselves and their interests.Alas, at the time, neither male union activists nor middle-class women allies understood these young girls' politics, and the union movement suffered for its misunderstanding. But Enstad understands these girls perfectly. In Enstad's analysis movies and fashion become political--as they in fact were. And thanks to her explanation I finally understand why my feisty Jewish grandmothers insisted on calling themselves and their friends "ladies." A must-read for anybody who loves the new women's history. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. 20th century    2. History    3. Labor & Industrial Relations - General    4. Popular Culture - General    5. Popular culture    6. Social Science    7. Sociology    8. United States    9. United States - 19th Century/Turn of the Century    10. United States - General    11. Women consumers    12. Women's Studies - General    13. Women's Studies - History    14. Working class women    15. American history: c 1800 to c 1900    16. American history: from c 1900 -    17. History of specific racial & ethnic groups    18. Labour economics    19. Social Science / Women's Studies    20. Social history    21. USA    22. Women's studies    23. Work & labour