The field of American women's writing is one characterized by innovation: scholars are discovering new authors and works, as well as new ways of historicizing this literature, rethinking contexts and categories. This book develops and challenges historical, cultural, theoretical, even polemical methods, all of which will advance the future study of American women writers – from Native Americans to postmodern communities, from individual careers to communities of writers and readers.
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.