Feminism: The Essential Historical Writings

By Miriam Schneir

Book Overview

This essential volume brings together more than forty of the most important historical writings on feminism, covering 150 years of the struggle for women's freedom. Spanning the American Revolution to the first decades of the twentieth century, these works--many long out of print or forgotten--are finally brought out of obscurity and into the light of contemporary analysis and criticism. This richly diverse collection contains excerpts from books, essays, speeches, documents, and letters, as well as poetry, drama, and fiction by major feminist writers, including: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, George Sand, Mary Wollstonecraft, Abigail Adams, Emma Goldman, Friedrich Engels, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, John Stuart Mill, Margaret Sanger, Virginia Woolf, and many others. The pieces in Feminism: The Essential Historical Writing s cover the crucial challenges faced by women, including marriage as an instrument of oppression; a woman's desire to control her own body; the economic independence of women; and the search for selfhood, and extensive commentaries by the editor help the reader see the historical context of each selection.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679753818
• ISBN13: 9780679753810
• Release Date: June 1994
• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 0.71 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.4" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

This really is essential

Schneir's collection of various (proto)feminist writings is essential to understand the more familiar feminist "movement," the second wave of the 60s and 70s. Feminism did not emerge out of vacuum in the sixties; rather, it has a history of courageous women (and men) struggling for the most basic rights we take for granted today. Although the excerpts are not long, and I recommend reading the documents in full, this is an excellent introductory volume. You can read through it or skip around, but either way you come away with a knowledge and appreciation for the brave souls who came before. Check out Schneir's second volume, which deals the Second Wave, from de Beauvoir to Anita Hill.

reader from Illinois

I was quite surprised by the reality of the book. It hit me hard. I then realized that women were desperately oppressed in earlier days. I thought we had it bad now... Oh boy was I wrong. I will pass this on to my daughter-if I ever decide to have one... :)