America's Women - by Gail Collins (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

Rich in detail, filled with fascinating characters, and panoramic in its sweep, this magnificent work of women's history tells for the first time the complete story of the American woman from the Pilgrims to the 21st-century.

In this sweeping cultural history, Gail Collins explores the transformations, victories, and tragedies of women in America over four hundred years. As she traces the role of females from their arrival on the Mayflower through the 19th century to the feminist movement of the 1970s and today, she demonstrates a boomerang pattern of participation and retreat.

In some periods, women were expected to work in the fields and behind the barricades--to colonize the nation, become the pioneer women of the West, and run the defense industries of World War II. In the decades between, economic forces and cultural attitudes shunted them back into the home, confining them to the role of moral beacon and domestic goddess. Told chronologically through the compelling true stories of individuals whose lives, linked together, provide a complete picture of the American woman's experience, America's Women is a landmark work of US social history and major contribution for us all.

This definitive narrative of American cultural history explores the complex forces that have shaped the lives of women--and the nation itself:

• From the Mayflower to the Modern Era: Follow the panoramic story of the American woman from the harrowing journey of the first colonists and the grit of pioneer women to the fight for suffrage and the feminist movements of the 20th century.
• A Cycle of Progress and Retreat: Discover the fascinating boomerang pattern of participation and retreat, as women moved from the fields and factories of wartime to the confines of the home as domestic goddesses, and back again.
• Helpmates and Heroines: Meet the captivating characters--both famous and forgotten--whose compelling true stories, from the Gilded Age to the Great Depression, create a complete picture of the female experience.
• Landmark Social History: Rich in detail and told with a novelist's eye, this landmark work reveals the transformations, victories, and tragedies that defined four hundred years of women's history in America.

From the Back Cover

America's Women tells the story of more than four centuries of history. It features a stunning array of personalities, from the women peering worriedly over the side of the Mayflower to feminists having a grand old time protesting beauty pageants and bridal fairs. Courageous, silly, funny, and heartbreaking, these women shaped the nation and our vision of what it means to be female in America.

By culling the most fascinating characters -- the average as well as the celebrated -- Gail Collins, the editorial page editor at the New York Times, charts a journey that shows how women lived, what they cared about, and how they felt about marriage, sex, and work. She begins with the lost colony of Roanoke and the early southern "tobacco brides" who came looking for a husband and sometimes -- thanks to the stupendously high mortality rate -- wound up marrying their way through three or four. Spanning wars, the pioneering days, the fight for suffrage, the Depression, the era of Rosie the Riveter, the civil rights movement, and the feminist rebellion of the 1970s, America's Women describes the way women's lives were altered by dress fashions, medical advances, rules of hygiene, social theories about sex and courtship, and the ever-changing attitudes toward education, work, and politics. While keeping her eye on the big picture, Collins still notes that corsets and uncomfortable shoes mattered a lot, too.

"The history of American women is about the fight for freedom," Collins writes in her introduction, "but it's less a war against oppressive men than a struggle to straighten out the perpetually mixed message about women's roles that was accepted by almost everybody of both genders."

Told chronologically through the compelling stories of individual lives that, linked together, provide a complete picture of the American woman's experience, America's Women is both a great read and a landmark work of history.

Review Quotes

"Gail Collins knows how to tell a story. Lively, witty, and dead serious, this wise history is a fascinating read." - Linda K. Kerber, professor of history, University of Iowa, and author of No Constitutional Right to Be Ladies

"Though America's Women is an easy and entertaining read, it also fulfills the radical promise of women's history." - Chicago Tribune

"A fascinating compendium" - Oprah Magazine

"Masterful...Collins' sly wit and unfussy style makes this historical book extremely accessible." - People

"A rousing epic...[Collins] is a master of the effortless glide from the individual to the collective experience and back again, with the result that her narrative is as broad as it is deep." - Stacy Schiff, New York Times Book Review

"This is one of the most fascinating American History books I've ever read. I learned something new on every page." - Huntsville Times

"Illuminating cultural history of American women... Informative and entertaining." - Kirkus Reviews

"Collins offers a fast-paced and entertaining narrative history of American women." - Library Journal