03/14/2006 9:45 PM
Posted by VeggieSteph

America's Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines by Gail Collins

America’s Women is a collected history of the women in America, from before the colonization to the new feminist movement in the 60’s. It was a National Bestseller, and I can tell why. For a history, it was a very easy read and absorbing. This book tells how women in America shaped the world around them, and what it meant and means to be a woman here. It describes how women’s lives were shaped by the political climate, fashion, medicine, hygiene, social expectations, and theories on education, work, and politics.

The first few chapters cover the colonization of America and the lives of the early women colonists. In these chapters, Gail Collins tells about the danger for a woman crossing the ocean and trying to create a home in an unfamiliar and hostile place. She tells about Virginia Dare, the first baby to be born in Roanoke, who disappears later with the rest of her colony, the shortage of women in colonies and how a woman’s role changed dramatically in the first days of America from that of what she was used to. Many women experienced a freedom they did not know before, where their daily chores actually could make them money. Many women were able to run plantations and own land.

Gail Collins then covers the lives of women leading up to the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and the abolition of slavery. She outlines how women’s lives changed as the colonies became more structured. Corsets grew in popularity, and the idea of gentlewoman farmer that lead to the idealized Southern Belle did as well. Black women lost the few freedoms they had, and the slave trade grew. Women writers grew in popularity, and regular chores for women like baking were extremely difficult despite and because of the new kitchen implements like the cast iron stove. Abolition became a cause for women, led by women like Prudence Crandall, who ran a school for young black women in Connecticut. Women in the Civil War took up nursing, the running of farms, followed their husbands to battle, and even worked as spies.

The story of women pioneers and homesteaders includes stories of building sod houses, scraping by with a cast iron pot and dirt floors, and crossing the wide open West while trying to raise babies and tend the sick, seeing the buried remains of people who hadn’t survived the journey. The Gilded Age brought on women office workers, a new Rubenesque body type, department stores, and the new trend of removing women’s reproductive organs to solve all of their medical problems. Immigrant women traveled in droves to see the “Women’s Country,” and ended up living in small communities populated by other immigrants from their same countries, working hard to feed their families and raise their children.

In the new century, women discovered the New Woman and the suffrage movement. Women started staying single, devoting their lives to the betterment of society (like Jane Addams and her community at Hull House) instead of getting married. Women like Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic. The new 20’s woman, the flapper, became popular, and social mores changed enough where women were fooling around with their dates in cars in the street. Kotex pads were created, and women finally had a somewhat clean way to deal with menstruation.

The Depression brought Eleanor Roosevelt to the forefront, the Dust Bowl, and Nancy Drew. The coming of Rosie the Riveter in World War II brought women back out into the world of work, but instead of office and teaching jobs that they were used to, they now worked in factories. Japanese women struggled to keep their families together despite being shipped off to camps. Women joined the service and were shipped out to serve as nurses in some of the most dangerous areas of battle.

The new housewife of the 1950’s was a complete turnaround from the woman worker of WWII. This new woman catered to her husband, and spent her whole life wrapped up in family and suburbia. Suburbia had its up points for women, in that they were able to form new communities and friendships easier than before. Women began planning for marriage before they were in their first training bras, and went to college to find husbands rather than degrees and knowledge.

The 1960’s brought the pendulum back the other way, bringing the new feminist movement to light. The Pill began to be sold, and changed the way women had sex forever. Betty Freidan wrote The Feminine Mystique, and later ran NOW. Women began fighting for equal rights, equal pay, abortion rights, and many of the other things we take for granted now. Bras were burned; Miss America was protested against. The world changed once again.

America’s Women covers a lot of ground, and Gail Collins includes just enough detail to give you the big picture. However, she also includes enough information in her footnotes so that any interested reader can find more information on any era or woman included in the book. I sped right through this book because although Gail Collins' writing style was plain, she is a great storyteller. Any one who is interested in an overview of women’s history in America and how it influenced the world we now live in should check this book out.