A true history of Providence cannot be written without acknowledging that women, as well as men, carved this new city out of the wilderness, shaped it, and gave it a permanence of which to be proud. Unfortunately, most accounts of Providence's early history have relegated the role of women to an occasional mention of a wife's name. A few individual biographical portraits of women have been written and "women's histories" have described clothes, home life, child care and such, but none have integrated women into the history of the city as a whole. In contrast, Ms. Mills not only includes women...