Books in Cultural History of Women in America series

This fascinating book is the first volume in a projected cultural history of the United States, from the earliest English settlements to our own time. It is a history of American folkways as they have changed through time, and it argues a thesis about the importance for the United States of having been British in its cultural origins.While most people in the United States today have no British ancestors, they have assimilated regional cultures which were created by British colonists, even while preserving ethnic identities at the same time. In this sense, nearly all Americans are "Albion's Seed," no matter what their ethnicity may be. The concluding section of this remarkable book explores the ways that regional cultures have continued to dominate national politics from 1789 to 1988, and still help to shape attitudes toward education, government, gender, and violence, on which differences between American regions are greater than between European nations.

As the colonists became increasingly dissatisfied in the rule of the British government, women began to take an active role in the movements leading up to the Revolutionary War. After obtaining independence from the crown, women became dissatisfied with their exclusion from Constitutional rights. Daughters of Liberty traces women's role through the war and the Early Republic, including the creation of the Daughters of Liberty, African-American mutual aid societies, and the first women's relief organization, the Ladies Association of Philadelphia.

The 19th Amendment, ratified in 1920, finally enfranchised American women. In the early 1920s, many women had well-paying jobs and more freedom than ever before. However, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 brought the Great Depression, making life extremely hard for working women, wives, and mothers. The Great Depression concentrates on key areas of women's lives, such as their role in the family and in the workplace. It traces the growing role of women in politics after they gained the right to vote in 1920 and describes the part some women played in advancing learning, science, sports, and the arts.

During the years of settlement and exploration of the North American continent, women's position in society was largely restricted to the domestic sphere. Finding an Identity describes the roles women played as colonists settled in what is now the Americas and explores the variations in the roles of women, especially in Native American and African-American cultures. Furthermore, this engaging title examines the growing responsibility accepted by women in colonial society as the colonists moved toward independence from their home countries.