U.S. Women’s History: Untangling the Threads of Sisterhood

In the 1970s, feminist slogans proclaimed “Sisterhood is powerful,” and women’s historians searched through the historical archives to recover stories of solidarity and sisterhood. However, as feminist scholars have started taking a more intersectional approach—acknowledging that no woman is simply defined by her gender and that affiliations like race, class, and sexual identity are often equally powerful—women’s historians have begun to offer more varied and nuanced narratives.

The ten original essays in U.S. Women’s History represent a cross-section of current research in the field. Including work from both emerging and established scholars, this collection employs innovative approaches to study both the causes that have united American women and the conflicts that have divided them. Some essays uncover little-known aspects of women’s history, while others offer a fresh take on familiar events and figures, from Rosa Parks to Take Back the Night marches.

Spanning the antebellum era to the present day, these essays vividly convey the long histories and ongoing relevance of topics ranging from women’s immigration to incarceration, from acts of cross-dressing to the activism of feminist mothers. This volume thus not only untangles the threads of the sisterhood mythos, it weaves them into a multi-textured and multi-hued tapestry that reflects the breadth and diversity of U.S. women’s history.

Praise for U.S. Women’s History: Untangling the Threads of Sisterhood …

This indispensable volume collects the most current scholarship on gender and U.S. history.  The essays are a testament to the vibrancy of the field of women's history and illustrate the range of methodological and theoretical innovations that continue to drive the field.

Jennifer L. Morganauthor of Laboring Women: Gender and Reproduction in New World Slavery
Jennifer L. Morgan

This is women’s history at its finest. With essays on diverse women, the anthology at once builds upon generations of scholarship as it pushes the field in exciting new directions

Michele MitchellProfessor of History, New York University
Michele Mitchell