This anthology brings together articles in U.S. Women's History, organized around issues related to gender and power in American society. The essays provide themes in understanding of women's history and changing gender relations, like the sexual division of labor, the anti-slavery movement, slavery, women's rights, religious women, and reproductive control.
Twenty essays provide readers with a unifying theme, and an understanding of history and continuing changes in gender relations. The chosen works discuss female institution building and American feminism, working-class women and sexuality, the professionalization of birth control, the sexual division of labor in the auto industry during World War II, the arrival of women in New York's Chinatown, the ERA, fair pay for working women, and much more.