Mistress of Herself - by Ernestine L Rose (Paperback)

About the Book

The first collection of speeches and writings from the nineteenth century's women's rights leader.

Book Synopsis

Susan B. Anthony hung a picture of Rose on her wall. Elizabeth Cady Stanton publicly eulogized her as indispensable. Unique among the founders of the women's rights movement because she was a Polish immigrant of Jewish background, celebrated orator Ernestine Rose (1810-1882) won the title "Queen of the Platform" for her brilliant speeches, advocating and linking women's rights, religious freedom, and the abolition of slavery.

Review Quotes

"Rose's matrix of influences and commitments made her not only a prominent figure, but also a unique window into the nineteenth-century US. This volume promises to give her work some of the attention it deserves. . . . Highly Recommended." --Choice Magazine

"Because Mistress of Herself is mainly a collection of primary sources, this volume is an invaluable resource for historians and those who are looking to do research. But because Doress-Worters' introduction provides so much information, not only about Rose's life but also about the larger historical context regarding how socialism, abolitionism and the spread of democracy in the United States helped spawn the first wave of the feminist movement, readers of all sorts can enjoy and learn from the life and words of Ernestine L. Rose." --Forward Magazine

"Bravo to Paula Doress-Worters and The Feminist Press for bringing Ernestine Rose's letters and speeches to all of us. Though Rose died over a hundred years ago, her words still thrill and inspire us. Doress-Worters' carefully researched introduction and explanatory notes provide a rich cultural context for understanding this remarkable woman." --Carol Kolmerten, author of The American Life of Ernestine L. Rose

"Through a masterful interspersal of historical background with the words of this courageous woman, Paula Doress-Worters brings us a fascinating story of the earliest suffragists whose efforts ultimately led to winning the vote for women in 1920. Mistress of Herself is a must-read for every woman, and an absolute necessity for every high school and college library. It is a real gem." --Kappie Spencer, founder of the National Gender Balance Project

"This collection of [Rose's] work adds a new dimension to and complicates women's rights history, for unlike the majority of Protestant New England abolitionist and suffrage leaders Ernestine Susmund Potowski Rose was a socialist, Jewish, atheist, Polish immigrant." --Rosalyn Baxandall, author of America's Working Women

"Wonderful. This fine collection restores [Rose's] arguments, expanding our view of the past and inspiring dreams of the future. Important for scholars, activists, and progressives generally." --Bonnie S. Anderson, author of Joyous Greetings: The First International Women's Movement, 1830-1860

About the Author

Born in Poland to a Jewish family, Ernestine Louise Rose (1810 -1892) was a feminist, abolitionist, freethinker, and atheist. She was one of the major intellectual forces behind the women's rights movement in nineteenth-century America. After over thirty years of activism, Rose retired in 1869 to England, where she died 22 years later.

Paula Doress-Worters, a veteran activist, is one of the original authors of the groundbreaking Our Bodies, Ourselves (1970). She is currently the director of the Ernestine Rose Society and a Scholar at the Women's Studies Research Center of Brandeis University.