Every anthology constructs a tradition. Sitting directly in dialogue with the feminist literary recovery project of the past 30 years, this anthology constructs a tradition of American women’s writing that is truly multiple and inclusive, bringing together women’s voices from across a broad spectrum of U.S. social life. Anyone who cares about women’s literature is sure to be intrigued by this anthology’s radical vision of what the history of women’s writing truly has been.
Neither narrowly canonical nor exclusively literary, this 1200-page anthology features women’s voices as they appear in nontraditional public formats, such as trial transcripts, petitions and criminal confessions. It includes women’s writing in public formats other than just print, including speeches and song lyrics. It also features expanded selections from Chicanas, working class women and antebellum Native American women, as well as thematic concerns with disability, women’s sexuality, immigration and diaspora, women’s suffrage, and lynching. And it offers expanded selections of plays, including temperance and “minstrel” plays; travel narratives; as well as a broader range of fiction from both women’s magazines and “literary” magazines. The aim of Volume One (17th through 19th centuries) is to show when and where and how women entered into public discourse pre-20th century, and how that access varied according to race, national origin, class, education, geographical location, physical ability, etc. as well as how it varied over the two centuries. Some of these materials have not been reprinted since their original publication; many have never been available in “literature” or “women writers” anthologies.
