Women's Voices, Women's Lives: Documents in Early American History

The editors draw on diaries letters essays court documents sermons wills plantation records newspapers fiction and advice manuals to reconstruct womens lives and roles during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In addition to sources that convey womens experiences in their own words the work includes prescriptive and proscriptive materials most written by men to further illuminate womens behavior and attitudes. The book is divided into six thematic chapters: sex and reproduction marriage and family womens work religion politics and the law and changing gender ideologies. Introductory essays by the editors place each section within historical cultural and social context and each source is annotated with information about the documents author and insightful interpretation of its typicality or its special circumstances. This enriching collection fills a major gap in the study of early American women and it is sure to stimulate further discussions about both the common and diverse aspects of their lives.