The University of Wisconsin Press

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Autobiography / Women's Studies / American Studies

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Before They Could Vote American Women's Autobiographical Writing, 1819–1919 Edited by Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson Wisconsin Studies in Autobiography "This indispensable collection is . . . important for its range of topics—social uplift, geography, education, lynching, sanctification, Indian removal, deafness, and abolition, among others."—Dale M. Bauer, coeditor, The Cambridge Companion to Nineteenth-Century American Women's Writing The life narratives in this collection are by ethnically diverse women of energy and ambition-some well known, some forgotten over generations—who confronted barriers of gender, class, race, and sexual difference as they pursued or adapted to adventurous new lives in a rapidly changing America. The engaging selections—from captivity narratives to letters, manifestos, criminal confessions, and childhood sketches—span a hundred years in which women increasingly asserted themselves publicly. Some rose to positions of prominence as writers, activists, and artists; some sought education or wrote to support themselves and their families; some transgressed social norms in search of new possibilities. Each woman's story is strikingly individual, yet the brief narratives in this anthology collectively chart bold new visions of women's agency. "This rich new anthology sets in motion an inter-textual conversation of remarkable vitality that will change the ways we understand gender, class, ethnicity, culture, and nation in nineteenth-century America."—Susanna Egan, author of Mirror-Talk Featuring selections from Mary Antin, Mary Hunter Austin, Rose Butler, Sui Sin Far, Margaret Fuller, Mary Jemison, Adele M. Jewel, Sarah Orne Jewett, Fanny Kemble, Lucy Larcom, Jarena Lee, Mary MacLane, "Madeleine," Eulalia Pérez, Harriet Quimby, Zitkala-Sa, M. Carey Thomas, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Fannie Barrier Williams, and Sarah Winnemucca. Wisconsin Studies in Autobiography William L. Andrews, Series Editor Sidonie Smith is Martha Guernsey Colby Collegiate Professor of English and Women's Studies and chair of the Department of English at the University of Michigan. Julia Watson is associate professor of comparative studies at The Ohio State University. Their several previous books include Reading Autobiography and Women, Autobiography, Theory: A Reader. For more information regarding publicity and reviews contact our publicity manager, Chris Caldwell, phone: (608) 263-0734, email: publicity@uwpress.wisc.edu Of related interest Harriet Tubman: The Life and the Life Stories Jean M. Humez

August 2006 LC: 2006006984 HQ 472 pp.  6 x 9 Paper $26.95 s ISBN 978-0-299-22054-9 e-book $14.95 s ISBN 978-0-299-22053-2   Adobe Digital Edition (PDF) About our e-books Printing and cut/paste allowed, access on six different devices. ADD TO CART   Click here for a further explanation of the shopping cart feature. The cloth edition, ISBN 978-0-299-22050-1, is out of print

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