Only in recent decades has the American academic profession taken women's history seriously. But the very concept of women's history has a much longer past, one that's intimately entwined with the development of American advertising and consumer culture. Selling Women's History reveals how, from the 1900s to the 1970s, popular culture helped teach Americans about the accomplishments of their foremothers, promoting an awareness of women's wide-ranging capabilities. On one hand, Emily Westkaemper examines how this was a marketing ploy, as Madison Avenue co-opted women's history to sell everything from Betsy Ross Red lipstick to Virginia Slims cigarettes. But she also shows how pioneering adwomen and female historians used consumer culture to publicize histories that were ignored elsewhere. Their feminist work challenged sexist assumptions about women's subordinate roles.... (continued)
Award-winning women scholars from nontraditional backgrounds have often negotiated an academic track that leads through figurative--and sometimes literal--minefields. Their life stories offer inspiration, but also describe heartrending struggles and daunting obstacles. Reshaping Women's History presents autobiographical essays by eighteen accomplished scholar-activists who persevered through poverty or abuse, medical malpractice or family disownment, civil war or genocide. As they illuminate their own unique circumstances, the authors also address issues all-too-familiar to women in the academy: financial instability, the need for mentors, explaining gaps in resumes caused by outside events, and coping with gendered family demands, biases, and expectations. Eye-opening and candid, Reshaping Women's History shows how adversity, and the triumph over it, enriches scholarship and spurs extraordinary efforts to affect social change.
Spanning the antebellum era to the present day, the ten original essays in U.S. Women's History represent a cross-section of current scholarship, examining both the causes that have united American women and the conflicts that have divided them. The book offers a fresh take on familiar events and figures, from Rosa Parks to Take Back the Night marches, while vividly conveying the multi-textured and multi-hued tapestry that is U.S. women's history.
Obsession with the conduct of young women has permeated society for over a century, be it over flappers, beat girls, dolly birds or ladettes. Eminent social historian Carol Dyhouse examines what it really meant to be a girl growing up in the twentieth century. This is a sparkling, panoramic account of the ever-evolving opportunities and challenges for girls, the new ways they have able to speak up for themselves, and the popular hysteria that has frequently accompanied their progress.
Citizenship and the Origins of Women's History in the United States challenges twenty-first-century assumptions of nineteenth-century women's history by tracing the ways women's history was politicized, particularly in light of the growing activism of women and the first woman's rights movement.
Mathes's edited volume, the first book to address the history of the WNIA, comprises essays by eight authors on the work of this important reform group.
Before 1893 no woman anywhere in the world had the vote in a national election. A hundred years later almost all countries had enfranchised women, and it was a sign of backwardness not to have done so. This is the story of how this momentous change came about. The first genuinely global history of women and the vote, it takes the story of women in politics from the earliest times to the present day, revealing startling new connections across time and national boundaries - from Europe and North America to Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Muslim world post- 9/11. A story of individuals as well as of wider movements, it includes the often dramatic life-stories of women's suffrage pioneers from across the world, painting vivid biographical portraits of everyone from Susan B. Anthony and the Pankhursts to hitherto lesser-known activists in China, Latin America, and Africa. It is also the first major post-feminist history of women's struggle for the vote. Controversially, Jad Adams rejects the idea that success was primarily a result of the pressure group politics of the suffragists and their supporters. Ultimately, he argues, it was nationalism, not feminism, that was the most important factor in winning women the vote.
A Brief History of Women in Quebec examines the historical experience of women of different social classes and origins (geographic, ethnic, and racial) from the period of contact between Europeans and Aboriginals to the twenty-first century to give a nuanced and complex account of the main transformations in their lives. Themes explored include demography, such as marriage, fecundity, and immigration; women's work outside and inside the home, including motherhood; education, from elementary school to post-secondary and access to the professions; the impact of religion and government policies; and social and political activism, including feminism and struggles to attain equality with men. Early chapters deal with New France and the first part of the nineteenth century, and the remaining are devoted to the period since 1880, an era in which women's lives changed rapidly and dramatically. The book concludes that transformation in the means of production, women's social and political activism (including feminism), and Quebec nationalism are three main keys to understanding the history of Quebec women. Together, the three show that women's history, far from being an adjunct to "general history," is essential to a full understanding of the past.
One hundred years after the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, it tells the dramatic culmination story of the hard-fought campaign waged by American women for the right to vote, a transformative cultural and political movement that resulted in the largest expansion of voting rights in US history.
At the age of 85, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has developed a lengthy legal legacy while becoming an unexpected pop culture icon. But the unique personal journey of her rise to the nation's highest court has been largely unknown, even to some of her biggest fans - until now. RBG explores Ginsburg's life and career.
Reviews the story of how women have helped shape America over the last fifty years through one of the most sweeping social revolutions in American history, in pursuit of their rights to a full and fair share of political power, economic opportunity, and personal autonomy.
Examines the life and legacy of African American poet, memoirist, and civil rights worker Maya Angelou, from her upbringing in the Depression-era South to her work with Malcolm X in Ghana to the recitation of her inaugural poem for President Bill Clinton. Includes Angelou's own words woven together with archival photographs and videos as well as interviews with Angelou's friends and family.
A surprising and intimate portrait of Margaret Thatcher, the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. One of the 20th century's most famous and influential women, Thatcher came from nowhere to smash through barriers of gender and class to be heard in a male-dominated world.
The story of the late nineteenth century movement to win voting rights for women in the United Kingdom. At its head was the redoubtable Emmeline Pankhurst. The women who fought for the right to vote came to be known as the Suffragettes. Mrs. Pankhurst herself was imprisoned several times in pursuit of the cause which was only won in 1928 - the year all women over twenty-one achieved the right to vote. It was also the year of Emmeline Pankhurst's death.
Details the story of a brilliant Jewish woman, Lise Meitner, who made scientific history when she and her collaborator, Otto Hahn, discovered nuclear fission in 1938. Yet her forced emigration from Nazi Germany meant that Otto Hahn would never credit her contribution when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1944.
How to describe Dorothy Day? Grandmother, anarchist, prophet, journalist, pacifist, saint? The FBI once considered her a threat to national security. Now the Catholic Church is considering her for sainthood. Revolution of The Heart: The Dorothy Day Story profiles one of the most extraordinary and courageous women in American history. She was co-founder (along with Peter Maurin) of the Catholic Worker Movement that began as a newspaper to expose rampant injustices during the Great Depression. ...(continued)
Actress/advocates and New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof meet individuals who are doing work to empower women and girls everywhere. These are stories of challenge, transformation and hope.
Inspired by true events, a moving drama exploring the passion and heartbreak of the women who risked everything in their fight for equality in early 20th century Britain. The story centers on Maud, a working wife and mother whose life is forever changed when she is secretly recruited to join the U.K.'s growing suffragette movement. Galvanized by the outlaw fugitive Emmeline Pankhurst, Maud becomes an activist for the cause alongside women from all walks of life.
Despite her premature death at age 39, Flannery O'Connor left behind one of the most haunting and strikingly original bodies of work in 20th Century literature. With the rural South as her backdrop, she brought to life a string of eccentric characters torn between their worldly ambitions and the need for a more enduring truth. This film traces the people and events that shaped her remarkable career, as well as the important role that Catholicism played in her writing. Featuring expert commentary and rare photographs, Uncommon Grace will give you a new appreciation for this highly celebrated, yet often misunderstood, storyteller.
In the wake of the sexual revolution and the rise of the women's movement, the 1973 tennis match between women's world champion Billie Jean King and ex-men's-champ and serial hustler Bobby Riggs became one of the most watched televised sports events of all time, reaching 90 million viewers around the world. As the rivalry between King and Riggs kicked into high gear, off-court each was fighting more personal and complex battles.
This program traces the rise of suffrage militancy, a direct-action approach to politics inspired by Britain’s notoriously militant suffragettes. By 1911, “votes for women” had become, as one journalist noted, “the three small words which constitute the biggest question in the world today.” While galvanizing to many, such radical action was also divisive.
