Frontispiece and title page, Lydia Maria Child, The Girls' Own Book. New York: Clark, Austin & Company, 1833. Images from the University of North Carolina Libraries via HathiTrust. During the nineteenth century, literature was a male-dominated field—written by and for men. Although a small subset of books for and by women did exist, those books … Continue reading The Girls’ Own Book
Alice Duer Miller, Are Women People? A Book of Rhymes for Suffrage Times. New York: George H. Doran Company, 1915. Image from the University of Wisconsin Libraries via HathiTrust. Are Women People? is a book of poetry that promotes women’s right to vote. Miller makes use of satire in her poems to criticize arguments for … Continue reading Are Women People?
Scipio Moorhead, engraved portrait of Phillis Wheatley, and title page, Phillis Wheatley, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. London: A. Bell, 1773. Image from the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Phillis Wheatley, transported from Africa to North America in 1761 at the age of seven or eight, became the first … Continue reading Poems on Various Subjects
Catharine Esther Beecher, The Evils Suffered by American Women and American Children: The Causes and the Remedy. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1846. Image from John P. Robarts Library, University of Toronto, via the Internet Archive. Catharine Beecher advocated for education reform in the attempt to improve women’s and children’s lives. Born to a progressive and … Continue reading The Evils Suffered by American Women and American Children
Frontispiece and title page of [Herman Mann], The Female Review: Or, Memoirs of an American Young Lady by a Citizen of Massachusetts. Dedham MA: Nathaniel and Benjamin Heaton, 1797. Image from the Massachusetts Historical Society, permission pending. The Female Review is a biography of Deborah Sampson Gannett, a woman who successfully disguised her gender for … Continue reading The Female Review: The Life of Deborah Sampson
Joseph Henry Hatfield?, illustrator. First page of "The Yellow Wall-Paper" by Charlotte Perkins Stetson [Gilman]. The New England Magazine, January 1892. Image from Cornell University Library via HathiTrust. In 1892, Charlotte Perkins Stetson, later Gilman, published “The Yellow Wallpaper” in the New England Magazine, an illustrated literary monthly. A semi-autobiographical tale, Gilman’s story relays through … Continue reading “The Yellow Wall-Paper”
Title page from The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, by Mary Prince. London: F. Westley and A. H. Davis, 1831. Image from the British Library. The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave was the first detailed description of the experiences of a female enslaved person in the Caribbean. Her account … Continue reading The History of Mary Prince
Cover of "A Lecture on Constitutional Equality," a speech delivered by Victoria Woodhull. Journeymen Printers' Co-operative Association, 1871. Image via The Library of Congress. Public domain. In 1871, leader of the American suffragist movement, Victoria Woodhull, delivered her "Lecture on Constitutional Equality" at Lincoln Hall, Washington D.C. In her speech, she argues for women's rights … Continue reading A Lecture on Constitutional Equality
Cover of Mrs. Spring Fragrance, by Sui Sin Far [Edith Maude Eaton]. Chicago: A.C. McClurg, 1912. Image from Cornell University Library via HathiTrust. Mrs. Spring Fragrance was the only collection of short stories published by the writer Sui Sin Far, who was born Edith Maude Eaton in 1865. A woman of Chinese-English descent, she grew … Continue reading Mrs. Spring Fragrance
SCRIBBLING WOMEN 