Kategoria BISAC: Biography & Autobiography >> Women

Female, Jewish, and Educated presents a collective biography of Jewish women who attended universities in Germany or Austria before the Nazi era. To what extent could middle-class Jewish women in the early decades of the 20th century combine family and careers? What impact did anti-Semitism and gender discrimination have in shaping their personal and professional choices? Harriet Freidenreich analyzes the lives of 460 Central European Jewish university women, focusing on their family backgrounds, university experiences, professional careers, and decisions about marriage and children. She...

The colorful lives of these women, who often traveled in the most avant-garde circles of their day, are presented in fascinating detail. The obstacles and censures that were also a part of their lives are a sobering reminder of the bias against women still present in this and other fields of academic endeavor. Mathematicians, science historians, and general readers will find this book a lively history; women will find it a reminder of a proud tradition and a challenge to take their rightful place in academic life today.

Black Women in Nineteenth-Century American Life presents selections from the writings of two dozen representative black women leaders of the past century, with a general introduction relating them to their forebears in colonial times and to their descendants in the twentieth century. Each selection is introduced with a biographical headnote, and the book contains a bibliography of works by or about these women and other black women. The selections are grouped in four parts, emphasizing respectively family relationships, religious activities, political and reformist movements, and...

During the era of the American Revolution and long after, the name Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson was well known in Philadelphia, recognized as belonging to one of British North America's most illustrious women of letters. One admirer dubbed her "the most learned woman in America." In this, the first full-length biography of Fergusson, Anne M. Ousterhout brilliantly captures the life and times of America's first great female savant.

Born in 1737 to a wealthy family, Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson excelled from an early age. Although women in her day were denied higher education, Fergusson...

This is the amazing story of Hanna Reitsch, one of the most celebrated women of the Third Reich. As a decorated test pilot for the Luftwaffe and a protege of Hitler, Reitsch was one of a handful of women who achieved personal success by breaking from the traditionally defined role of wife and mother in Nazi Germany. Reitsch's skills and accomplishments ultimately earned her an Iron Cross and celebrity status. A witness to the last days of the Third Reich, Reitsch visited Hitler's Berlin bunker where she received orders to deliver letters designed to rally the Luftwaffe. She left on this...

The First Female Stars: Women of the Silent Era rediscovers the fascinating lives and pioneering achievements of 15 women who dared to venture into early motion pictures, an industry dominated by men, and who not only succeeded but became the focal points of the industry. Each star earned a position at the height of her profession, and though many are largely forgotten today, made a lasting and significant contribution to early cinema. In this entertaining and informative volume, author David Menefee reveals these women and their signature roles, drawing on many original sources to...

As a politician, what you say and how you say it is almost as important as what you do. Political careers are made based not only on substantive achievements, but also on style, presentation, speeches, and debates. Dole's is no exception. After a career in government service spanning six presidents, from Lyndon B. Johnson to George H. W. Bush, she became widely recognized as a leading Republican politician in her own right after her 1996 speech at the GOP convention. In 1999 she spent six months campaigning for president before dropping out of the race due to a lack of adequate funds, and...

Women who were sixty or older at the turn of the twenty-first century have lived through some of recent history's most momentous moments--and yet these women often believe that their personal lives and stories are insignificant, not worthy of being recorded for future generations. To change that perception and capture some of these life stories before they are lost, the Story Circle Network, a national organization dedicated to helping women write about their lives, developed the Older Women's Legacy (OWL) Circle Memoir Workshops. During the first two years of the project (1998-2000),...

Even by modern standards, the Empress Theodora (?-548) had a remarkable rise to power. Born into the lowest class of Byzantine society, she worked as an actress in burlesque theater. Yet she attracted the love of the future emperor Justinian, who, to the astonishment of proper society, made her not only his wife but also his partner in government. Justinian's respect for and trust in Theodora gave her power in her own right unmatched by almost any other Roman or Byzantine empress.

In this book, James Allan Evans provides a scholarly, yet highly accessible account of the life and...

Authors of autobiographies are always engaged in creating a "self" to present to their readers. This process of self-creation raises a number of intriguing questions: why and how does anyone choose to present herself or himself in an autobiography? Do women and men represent themselves in different ways and, if so, why? How do differences in culture affect the writing of autobiography in various parts of the world?

This book tackles these questions through a close examination of Arab women's autobiographical writings. Nawar Al-Hassan Golley applies a variety of western critical...

The story of Jewel Babb, from her early years as a tenderfoot ranch wife to her elder years as a desert healing woman, has enthralled readers since Border Healing Woman was first published in 1981. In this second edition, Pat LittleDog adds an epilogue to conclude the story, describing the mixed blessings that publicity brought to Jewel Babb before her death in 1991.

In the preface to her memoir, Ercenia "Alice" Cedeno recalls the secrecy and turmoil that marked her youth: "I spent most of my growing years mad at my mother and wanting her to change to fit in with the rest of the world," she writes. "When my sisters and I wanted her to visit our friends' mothers, she would say, 'Why do people need to know other peoples' lives?' Looking back, I wonder if she was really saying, 'I don't want them to know our business.' There was so much to hide."

Now bringing those hidden memories to light, Ama, Your Story Is Mine traces the hardship,...

A woman who went West with her husband in the 1840s must have expected hardships and privation, but during the 1940s, when Etta Koch stopped off in Big Bend with her young family and a 23-foot travel trailer in tow, she anticipated no more than a civilized camping trip between her old home in Ohio and a new one in Arizona. It was only when she found herself moving into an old rock house without plumbing or electricity in the new Big Bend National Park that Etta realized, "From the sheltered life of a city girl of moderate circumstances, I too would have to face the reality of frontier...

Margaret Elley Felt's autobiographical Gyppo Logger, originally published in 1963, tells a story almost universally overlooked in the history of the logging industry: the emergence of family-based, independent contract or "gyppo" loggers in the post-World War II timber economy, and the crucial role of women within that economy. For seven years Margaret Felt was her husband's partner in their logging business -- driving truck, keeping the wage rolls, and jawboning her way into more credit at the supply stores.

Margaret Elley Felt is the author of thirteen books in...

Sara Walsh was born in 1919 in the west of Ireland, in a land of storytellers. In prose that is neither history nor memoir but something larger and brighter than both, Remembering Ahanagran captures her memories of her early years in Ireland, her migration to the United States, and her marriage to Harry White, the Harvard-educated son of Russian Jewish emigrants. Her son, eminent historian Richard White, in collaboration with Sara, forces history as it is traditionally written into conversation with personal recollections.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1869-1935) was one of the leading intellectuals of the American women's movement in the first two decades of the twentieth century. Moving beyond the struggle for suffrage, Gilman confronted an even larger problem economic and social discrimination against women. Her book, Women and Economics, published in 1898, was repeatedly printed and translated into seven languages. She was a tireless traveler, lecturer, and writer and is perhaps best known for her dramatic short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper." Gilman's autobiography gives us access to the life of a...