Celebrated prison reformer Miriam Van Waters made history for her sensational battle to retain the superintendency of the Massachusetts Reformatory for Women in 1949. "Maternal Justice" provides a compelling biography of this early lesbian activist by moving beyond the controversy to tell the story of a remarkable woman whose success rested upon the power of her own charismatic leadership.
Estelle B. Freedman draws from Van Waters's diaries, letters, and personal papers to recreate her complex personal life, unveiling the disparity between Van Waters's public persona and her agonized...

"On the situations of women around the world today, this one book provides more illumination and insight than a dozen others combined. . . . Freedman's survey is a triumph of global scope and informed precision."
-NANCY F. COTT
Professor of History, Harvard University

Repeatedly declared dead by the media, the women's movement has never been as vibrant as it is today. Indeed as Stanford professor and award-winning author Estelle B. Freedman argues in her compelling book, feminism has reached a critical momentum from which there is no turning back. Freedman examines the...

One of the most fundamental human urges is to form a pair. Despite many tendencies that threaten traditional marriage and even make committed cohabitation problematic, very few people live through adulthood without at least one lengthy relationship, and up to ninety percent of Americans marry at least once in their lives. This pioneering volume draws attention to issues that question the unspoken traditional practices underlying coupling in America. In it, some of today's most innovative feminist scholars consider the dramatic changes couples have experienced over the past fifty years, such...

One of a small group of feminist pioneers in the historical profession, Estelle B. Freedman teaches and writes about women's history with a passion informed by her feminist values. Over the past thirty years, she has produced a body of work in which scholarship and politics have never been mutually exclusive. This collection brings together eleven essays--eight previously published and three new--that document the evolving relationship between academic feminism and political feminism as Freedman has studied and lived it.

Following an introduction that presents a map of the personal...

During World War II, as the United States called on its citizens to serve in unprecedented numbers, the presence of gay Americans in the armed forces increasingly conflicted with the expanding antihomosexual policies and procedures of the military. In Coming Out Under Fire, Allan Berube examines in depth and detail these social and political confrontation--not as a story of how the military victimized homosexuals, but as a story of how a dynamic power relationship developed between gay citizens and their government, transforming them both. Drawing on GIs' wartime letters, extensive...

This anthology pays tribute to Allan Berube (1946-2007), a self-taught historian and MacArthur Fellow who was a pioneer in the study of lesbian and gay history in the United States. Best known for his Lambda Literary Award-winning book Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War II (1990), Berube also wrote extensively on the history of sexual politics in San Francisco and on the relationship between sexuality, class, and race. John D'Emilio and Estelle Freedman, who were close colleagues and friends of Berube, have selected sixteen of his most important...

As the first full-length study of the history of sexuality in America, "Intimate Matters" offered trenchant insights into the sexual behavior of Americans from colonial times to the present. Now, twenty-five years after its first publication, this groundbreaking classic is back in a crucial and updated third edition. With new and extended chapters, D Emilio and Freedman give us an even deeper understanding of how sexuality has dramatically influenced politics and culture throughout our history and into the present.Hailed by critics for its comprehensive approach and noted by the US Supreme...

The uproar over legitimate rape during the 2012 U.S. elections confirms that rape remains a word in flux, subject to political power and social privilege. "Redefining Rape" describes the forces that have shaped the meaning of sexual violence in the U.S., through the experiences of accusers, assailants, and advocates for change."