This remarkable story begins in the years following the Civil War, when reformers--emboldened by the egalitarian rhetoric of the post-Civil War era--pressed New York City's oldest institution of higher learning to admit women in the 1870s. Their effort failed, but within twenty years Barnard College was founded, creating a refuge for women scholars at Columbia, as well as an academic beachhead "from which women would make incursions into the larger university." By 1950, Columbia was granting more advanced degrees to women and hiring more female faculty than any other university in the...

In this lively and informed exploration of women's lives in the larger context of U.S. social and political history, Rosalind Rosenberg shows how American traditions of federalism, racial and ethnic diversity, geographic mobility, and relative abundance have both aided and hindered women's strides toward equality.

Throughout her prodigious life, activist and lawyer Pauli Murray systematically fought against all arbitrary distinctions in society, channeling her outrage at the discrimination she faced to make America a more democratic country. In this definitive biography, Rosalind Rosenberg offers a poignant portrait of a figure who played pivotal roles in both the modern civil rights and women's movements.

A mixed-race orphan, Murray grew up in segregated North Carolina before escaping to New York, where she attended Hunter College and became a labor activist in the 1930s. When she applied to...