Well-read lives

Name: Well-read lives
Author: Barbara Sicherman
ISBN: 9780807833087

by Barbara Sicherman (2010)

Read Free Sample Buy on Amazon Audible Free Trial

About this book

In a compelling approach structured as theme and variations, the author offers insightful profiles of a number of accomplished women born in Americas Gilded Age who lost and found themselves in books, and worked out a new life purpose around them. Some women, like Edith and Alice Hamilton, M. Carey Thomas, and Jane Addams, grew up in households filled with books, while less privileged women found alternative routes to expressive literacy. Jewish immigrants Hilda Satt Polacheck, Rose Cohen, and Mary Antin acquired new identities in the English-language books they found in settlement houses and libraries, while African Americans like Ida B. Wells relied mainly on institutions of their own creation, even as they sought to develop a literature of their own. It is the author's contribution to show that however the skill of reading was acquired, under the right circumstances, adolescent reading was truly transformative in constructing female identity, stirring imaginations, and fostering ambition. With Little Women's Jo March often serving as a youthful model of independence, girls and young women created communities of learning, imagination, and emotional connection around literary activities in ways that helped them imagine, and later attain, public identities. Reading themselves into quest plots and into male as well as female roles, these young women went on to create an unparalleled record of achievement as intellectuals, educators, and social reformers. This study reveals the centrality of the eras culture of reading and sheds new light on these women's Progressive-Era careers.

Setting / LocationGlobal

Story EraModern Era

Protagonist / CoreWell-read lives Lead Character

Themes & Moods

History Books and reading Women and literature Social aspects History Girls Modern Era

Readers who enjoyed this also loved

Constructing girlhood

Penny Tinkler

This book explores the contribution of magazines to the social construction of female adolescence during a historical period of rapid change, and locates the role of magazines in the lives of girls at this time. In addressing this theme, the book examines the changing social, economic, political and cultural conditions which shaped, and continue to influence, the experience of girlhood. The author discusses key concepts such as adolescence and 'girlhood', and engages with theories concerning the interpretation of gender relations, cultural production, meaning and reading. The chapters use life-course events and transitions such as schooling, work, entrance into sexual relationships, marriage and motherhood as their main themes. In exploring these themes, the author considers the importance attached to age and social class for the form and content of the magazines. The book also unravels the negotiation of key factors which contributed to decisions about what were legitimate concerns for different groups of girls, for example, publisher's objectives and culture; reader interests; and ideologies of femininity. Such concerns remain a feature of media issues today.

The school of sophisticated drinking

Kerstin Ehmer & Beate Hindermann

"The school of sophisticated drinking" traces the deep-seated lineage of drinking in the social, political, and even scentific developments of our culture. Inspired by an ongoing series of lectures at Berlin's legendary Potsdamer Strasse cocktail den, the Victoria Bar, this comprehensive books delves into the sociopolitical significance of and technological innovations behind a familiar wine or spirit-- brandy, vodka, whisky, rum, gin, tequila, and champagne-- and shares plenty of tales of libational adventure. Whether you're an expert drinker or a novice barfly, it'll give you plenty to contemplate inside your glass. --- From back cover.

Cultures in conflict--the American Civil War

Steven E. Woodworth

"The American Civil War was primarily a conflict of cultures, and slavery was the largest single cultural factor separating North and South. This collection of carefully selected memoirs, diaries, letters, and reminiscences of ordinary Northerners and Southerners who experienced the war as soldiers or civilians brings to life the conflict in culture, principles, attitudes, hopes, courage, and suffering of both sides. Woodworth, a Civil War historian, has selected a wide variety of moving first-person accounts. Each account tells a story of a life and reveals the attitudes of ordinary people and the real conditions of war - both in the field and on the homefront."--BOOK JACKET.

Shang yin wu bai nian

Daiwei Kaotelaite zhu

Offering a social and biological account of why psychoactive goods proved so seductive, David Courtwright tracks the intersecting paths by which popular drugs entered the stream of global commerce. He shows how the efforts of merchants and colonial planters expanded world supply, drove down prices, and drew millions of less affluent purchasers into the market, effectively democratizing drug consumption.