U.S. History As Women's History: New Feminist Essays (Gender & American Culture) [Paperback]

Linda K. Kerber (Author), Kathryn Kish Sklar (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Gender & American Culture | Publication Date: March 20, 1995

This outstanding collection of fifteen original essays represents innovative work by some of the most influential scholars in the field of women's history. Covering a broad sweep of history from colonial to contemporary times and ranging over the fields of legal, social, political, and cultural history, this book, according to its editors, 'intrudes into regions of the American historical narrative from which women have been excluded or in which gender relations were not thought to play a part.'

State formation, power, and knowledge have not traditionally been understood as the subjects of women's history, but they are the themes that permeate this book. Individually and together, the essays explore how gender serves to legitimize particular constructions of power and knowledge and to meld these into accepted practice and state policy. They show how the field of women's history has moved from the discovery of women to an evaluation of social processes and institutions.

The book is dedicated to pioneering women's historian Gerda Lerner, whose work inspired so many of the contributors, and it includes a bibliography of her works.

Editorial Reviews

Review

There are many lessons for historians and political activists in this valuable collection.

Women's Review of Books

This is a collection of work of inestimable worth and interest, valuable for all American historians, not only feminists.

Journal of Southern History

An impressive contribution to the pursuit of knowledge. Buy it, read it, assign it, and use it.

North Carolina Historical Review

This is history that matters, that makes a difference.

Journal of American History

About the Author

Kathryn Kish Sklar, Distinguished Professor of History at the State University of New York, Binghamton, is author of Florence Kelley and the Nation's Work: The Rise of Women's Political Culture, 1830-1900.

Product Details

• Paperback: 488 pages
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press (March 20, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807844950
• ISBN-13: 978-0807844953
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,155,510 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Forceful Defense of Writing US History as Women's History, April 8, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: U.S. History As Women's History: New Feminist Essays (Gender & American Culture) (Paperback)

Historians Linda Kerber, Alice Kessler-Harris and Kathryn Kish Sklar, have edited a volume of essays that is an example of what they describe as the fourth stage of development of women's history, achieving a synthesis of what is known about men and women. Their volume is an attempt to provide a synthesis of historical scholarship on gender and its intersection with power and knowledge.

Their volume maps this intersection with a scope that is both chronologically and topically broad. The collected essays address important issues throughout the entire history of the United States, beginning with Kerber's discussion of the obligations of women's citizenship in Revolutionary America and ending with Jane Sherron De Hart's examination of female representation among elected officials in the 1990s. Topically, while there is a significant emphasis on women's reform movements, especially in the Progressive Era, topics as diverse as the cultural phenomenon of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women and the creation of Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia comprise the full range of gender issues examined. The claim of the title of their edited volume, that United States history is as much women's history as it is men's, is supported forcefully by the works published. None of these essays are work characteristic of earlier stages of development of the field of women's history. Evidence of women's historical existence has been found; women's contributions to significant fields, once thought to have been only the work of men have been documented; and histories have been written chronicling reform movements and other developments that were fundamentally effected by the role of women.

The overarching argument of the editors and contributors is that women's history should no longer be ghettoized as a separate historical field, but rather should be synthesized into a larger historical narrative. Women's history should no longer be a subfield of social history, based on the claim that women represent some type of separate social group. Rather, based on the identification of the political nature women's public and private actions women's history is political history. This specific volume and its essays argue that this women's history should be central to the narrative of United States history.

One flaw that can be identified in this volume, U.S. History as Women's History, is that despite the inclusion of the word in its title, the editors fail to define the term feminist. Similarly, the qualifier new is not addressed adequately. Does this volume represent a new feminist viewpoint, or does the subtitle simply indicate that these are newly published feminist essays, not representing any analytical shift, but simply recognizing the completion of new works of scholarship? These are questions that would have benefited from these authors' expertise.