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:
