American Women Writers to 1800 advances our knowledge of early American culture. Including works by more than ninety women, many of whom have never before been published, this ambitious anthology captures the cultural and individual diversity of women's experiences in early America. It both...

American Women Writers to 1800 advances our knowledge of early American culture. Including works by more than ninety women, many of whom have never before been published, this ambitious anthology captures the cultural and individual diversity of women's experiences in early America. It both complements and extends earlier studies of colonial and Revolutionary America, with writings that observe the natural features and resources of the "New World"; the proliferation of religious movements; racial relations between Native Americans, African Americans, and European settlers; and patriotic and loyalist sympathies during the Revolutionary years. Selections also confront distinctly feminist issues, focusing on women's education; the psychological complexities of girlhood, marriage and childbirth; sexuality; the legal status of women; and the rise of feminist philosophies at the end of the eighteenth century. Along with better known Massachusetts writers such as Bradstreet, Rowlandson, and Knight, this collection presents works by authors from other New England, mid-Atlantic, and southern colonies, by African American and Native American women, and by women who explored the frontier regions. An impressive variety of genres is represented, with extensive selections of memoirs, letters, diaries, poetry, captivity narratives, Native American narratives, essays, sermons, autobiographies, novels, dramas, and scientific and political tracts. Brief biographical introductions to each author, explanatory footnotes, and a comprehensive index and bibliography impress modern scholarship upon this valuable literary collection and offer fertile ground for a radical rethinking of early American women's lives and writings, while challenging our assumptions regarding early America itself.

This unique guide will enable students, librarians, teachers, and general readers to easily identify the best biographies and autobiographies of 500 of the most notable women in American history. Spanning from colonial America through 1998, the guide features entries on historical and contemporary...

This unique guide will enable students, librarians, teachers, and general readers to easily identify the best biographies and autobiographies of 500 of the most notable women in American history. Spanning from colonial America through 1998, the guide features entries on historical and contemporary women who have achieved recognition in more than 100 fields of endeavor. It annotates approximately 1350 recommended books published since 1970 about these women. The compilation of works selected here is unavailable in any other reference.

What did the Founding Fathers mean when they wrote the Constitution? As our language has evolved, the exact meaning of their words has become more difficult to understand. To make the words and concepts used by the founders clearer to modern researchers, Greene and his colleagues have gone back to...

What did the Founding Fathers mean when they wrote the Constitution? As our language has evolved, the exact meaning of their words has become more difficult to understand. To make the words and concepts used by the founders clearer to modern researchers, Greene and his colleagues have gone back to the sources and excerpted the key passages that bear on the concepts and language of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. More than 80 key words are organized in alphabetical order, from "accusation" to "witness." Under each entry passages from key sources are provided in chronological order from as early as 1215 to December 15, 1791. Augmented by a concordance to the Constitution and a general subject index, this volume provides access to the key concepts and ideas of the Constitution as the founders understood them.

Theater has often served as a touchstone for critical moments of political change or national definition. Steve Wilmer selects key historical moments in American history to examine the theater's response. The selected events range from the Colonial fight for independence through Native American...

Theater has often served as a touchstone for critical moments of political change or national definition. Steve Wilmer selects key historical moments in American history to examine the theater's response. The selected events range from the Colonial fight for independence through Native American struggles, the Socialist Worker play and the Civil Rights Movement, to those of the last decade. Wilmer also considers audience reception and critical response.

Republicanism and Liberalism in America and the German States represents the cooperative effort of a group of American and German scholars to move the historical debate on republicanism and liberalism to a new stage. By systematically studying the similarities and differences in the understanding of...

Republicanism and Liberalism in America and the German States represents the cooperative effort of a group of American and German scholars to move the historical debate on republicanism and liberalism to a new stage. By systematically studying the similarities and differences in the understanding of republicanism and liberalism in the United States and German states, the collection stimulates new efforts toward a comprehensive interpretation of political, intellectual, and social developments in the "modernizing" Atlantic world of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Although Martha Washington has been the subject of several popular biographies, her writings, scattered into private hands, archives, and repositories, have never before been collected and published. This book attempts to publish all the known Martha Washington papers from every possible source...

Although Martha Washington has been the subject of several popular biographies, her writings, scattered into private hands, archives, and repositories, have never before been collected and published. This book attempts to publish all the known Martha Washington papers from every possible source. Most of her correspondence relates to key periods in her life - her first widowhood, the Revolutionary War, Washington's presidency, and the period after his death. Widowed at the age of twenty-six, her early correspondence was to settle and manage the affairs of her husband's estate, well documenting both legal and commercial affairs. During the revolutionary era, her letters, to friends, family, and acquaintances, are especially revealing for references to military affairs. The largest portion of the letters, written to friends and relatives during the presidential years, shed light on the Washingtons' life at Mount Vernon, New York, and Philadelphia. This book will be valuable to scholars of the Washington era and will interest all who are curious about Martha Washington.

Drawing on a gold mine of primary documents--including letters, diary entries, personal narratives, political speeches, broadsides, trial transcripts, and contemporary newspaper articles--The Boisterous Sea of Liberty brings the past to life in a way few histories ever do. Here is a panoramic look...

Drawing on a gold mine of primary documents--including letters, diary entries, personal narratives, political speeches, broadsides, trial transcripts, and contemporary newspaper articles--The Boisterous Sea of Liberty brings the past to life in a way few histories ever do. Here is a panoramic look at American history from the voyages of Columbus through the bloody Civil War, as captured in the words of Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe and many other historical figures, both famous and obscure. In these pieces, the living voices of the past speak to us from opposing viewpoints--from the vantage point of loyalists as well as patriots, slaves as well as masters--providing a more sophisticated understanding of the forces that have shaped our society, from the power of public opinion to the nearly absolute power of the slaveholder. For instance, on the issue of race, we find first-hand accounts of oppression suffered by Indians and slaves; the antislavery argument made before the Supreme Court by John Quincy Adams; the writings of Frederick Douglass and other abolitionists; and the bitter response of Southern politicians--all to give a richer portrait of this complex issue. Likewise, documents collected here provide a fuller understanding of such historical issues as Columbus's dealings with Native Americans, the Stamp Act Crisis, the Declaration of Independence, the Whiskey Rebellion, the Missouri Crisis, the Mexican War, and Harpers Ferry, to name but a few. Compiled by Pulitzer Prize winning historian David Brion Davis and Steven Mintz, and accompanied by extensive illustrations of original documents, The Boisterous Sea of Liberty brings the reader back in time, to meet the men and women who lived through the momentous events that shaped our nation.