My original idea for this post was to list my favorite women's history books from less favorite to most favorite with my most favorite last. As I reviewed these books I realized that about eight of them rank in the #1 position so they're not really in any particular order, though the last two are my most favorite. There's a broad range of books -- letters, biographies, memoirs, a cookbook -- from various time periods. I hope you'll find at least one book you'd like to read, perhaps one that parallels the life of an ancestor your know, or the occupation of an ancestor, or just one that interests you from this collection of books about women in history.
Not Becoming My Mother & Other Things She Taught Me Along the Way. Ruth Reichl
The author's mother, born in 1909, had plans for her daughter. Her parents sent her to music school even though she wanted to be a doctor. It wasn’t until after her
mother’s death that Ruth learned of the sacrifices her mother made so that Ruth could live a different, freer life.
I thought this was a great family history book, made all the better because Ruth’s mother had left lots of notes, letters, and other ephemera.
Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel. Jeannette Walls
This is a collection of stories (presented in chronological order) about the author’s grandmother, Lily Casey Smith. Lily told the stories to her daughter -- to impart life lessons -- who recounted them to the author. Walls commented that Lily was a very real person – she called her a character, with all due respect – but because she didn’t have the stories word-for-word and had to fill in some of the hazy or missing details with her own imagination, she thought the only honest thing was to call the book a novel.
Lily was born in the early 1900s and grew up on a ranch in the Arizona territories. If she had had a weaker character or less stamina, her life would have been completely different. She helped her father break horses when she was six; traveled hundreds of miles alone on
horseback to teach school when she was 15; learned to drive a car and fly a plane; and, to a great extent, chose the life she wanted to live, or, at the very least, lived well the life that came her way. The book is written in the first person and I came away feeling that I had a good idea what Lily would have been like in real life: a character to love.
The Witches: Salem, 1692. Stacy Schiff
If you have ancestors who lived in Salem or any nearby community in
the 1690s you may find this book interesting. I found it interesting
as wells challenging. The cast of characters was extensive but their
stories were scattered through the chapters. It gave me a different
perspective of life in the 1690s among the Puritans. While reading I
couldn't help but wonder how the people could have been duped by a
9-year-old and an 11-year-old. I wrote a more extended post about this
book which you can read
here.
Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Hugette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune.
Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell, Jr.
I loved this book! The writing was interesting and it was well-documented with nearly 50 pages of notes at the end. It had photographs in both black and white and color. And it had heart. Hugette’s father, W.A. Clark, was one of the wealthiest men in America at the time he died in the late 1920s. (He was born in common circumstances in 1839 in a 4-room log cabin in Pennsylvania. He moved from one success to another, accumulating wealth as the years passed.) Upon his death, Hugette (pronounced oo-GET) and four of her half-siblings inherited millions of dollars. In the book she was described as “shy” or “eccentric,” but as I read about her life I realized that she was an introvert. She was incredibly generous with her wealth and derived pleasure from sharing it with others. She was an artist, a musician, a doll-collector, and a lover of the arts. She owned paintings by Renoir, Monet, Manet, Degas, among others. She owned several mansions, yet lived in an apartment until she was in her 80s. She developed cancer of the face and moved to a hospital, staying there nearly 20 years until her death. Eccentric? Yes. But oh-so-interesting.
Don’t Sing at the Table: Life Lessons from My Grandmothers. Adriana Trigiani
Trigiani's grandmothers, born in the early 1900s, were recent immigrants with strong ties to Italy and Italian traditions. Both worked in the clothing industry when young, married, and raised
children. One opened her own blouse factory with her husband. The other, widowed at a young age, supported her family as a couture seamstress in Chisholm, Minnesota. The author touches on dates and
locations but she focuses on her grandmothers’ attributes, personalities, the lives they lived, the morals they lived by, and the values they held.
Her grandmothers were wise women with sage advice and I learned (or was sometimes reminded of) excellent rules to live by. (“Pay your bills. Clean up your debts as you go; let the obligation to pay off the debt fuel your ambition. . . . Have a moral code that elevates your
thinking, and your behavior will follow. . . . Take a chance, and when you fail, take another. There is no limit on risk; aim high and aim true. Be bold. Be different. Remember who you come from; you owe them because they gave you the ticket to this adventure. Honor the debt.”)
In some ways I think this is the kind of book that every family historian should write about an ancestor he/she knows or knew.
In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer.
Irene Gut Opdyke with Jennifer Armstrong
Irene was a 17-year-old Catholic nursing student when war came to Poland. She was captured, escaped, then captured again. When she saw the atrocities being committed, she chose to help: food under the ghetto fence at first, then transporting people in horse-drawn carts under piles of straw, then finally harboring a dozen people in the basement of a Wehrmacht major’s villa. She was “only a girl” but she did great things. Well worth the read. In fact, as I was reading it I was thinking this is a true life thriller.
I have often wondered what the Holocaust victims thought when they saw blue skies, birds, other beauties of nature. Irena wrote,
Surely, the evil being done in my county must be a poison that would ruin the soil, tarnish the air, and foul the water. Sometimes, when I thought of the amount of hatred dwelling in Poland, I was surprised to see that the grass was still green, that the trees still flourished their leaves against a blue sky.
And yet they did. It is a terrible irony of war, that nature itself does not rebel when man turns against his brother. I have seen nightmares take place on beautiful spring days. The birds can hop from one branch to another, tipping their heads and honing their small beaks against the bark while a child dies in the mud below.
She Left Me the Gun: My Mother's Life Before Me. Emma Brockes
Several times Emma’s mother said to her, “One day I will tell you the story of my life and you will be amazed.” Her mother died without telling her and Emma sets off to learn about her mother’s childhood in South Africa and her immigration to England by tracking down all of her aunts and uncles and traveling back to South Africa. Excellent sleuthing for those who know living relatives.
Emma said, “I think about it [her mother’s childhood to adult experience] afterward, what I am doing and why. The stronger reaction, I think, would be to walk away, to honor the firewall my mother put
between her past and my present and to carry on with my life. But I can’t.... While she was alive, it was none of my business. Now, unless I make it my business, it will follow her into oblivion.”
Bold Spirit. Helga Estby’s Forgotten Walk Across Victorian America. Linda Lawrence Hunt
Hunt put Helga in time and place and shares it all with us. Helga walked across America with her daughter to earn $10,000 to save her home and farm from foreclosure. And then her story was silenced until the smallest thread was found and shared by one of Helga’s great-grandchildren. Hunt discusses reasons why stories might be silenced. Read a previous post
here.
A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785--1812. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich.
Martha Ballard was 50 in 1785 when she started her diary. She wrote daily, usually just a few sentences: always about the weather; usually about her comings and goings; the births and deaths attended; her house and garden work; and sometimes about the events in the community around her. I love the interpretations and discussion which follow the diary entries in each chapter. Thatcher's words add further light and insight.
I think Martha Ballard is a hero to me. She was such a faithful woman. She served so many people in so many ways. She was spunky: she was still digging in her garden, starting new beds, and planting until she was 76, a year before she died. I think she was an amazing woman.
I loved this book. I posted a more extensive review
here.
The Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times.
Jennifer Worth
The setting is 1950s Poplar, an area of London, England, near the docks where the primary dialect is Cockney. Nurse Jennifer Lee works as a midwife with a group of nuns who serve the women of the area. Most chapters are self-contained stories, though some stories continue for several chapters.
One of the interesting aspects of the book is being able to learn how the author's perspective changed as she came to learn about and know the people she served.
If you're interested in language, dialect, accents, and slang, be sure to read "On the difficulties of writing the Cockney dialect" in the appendix. It's a dozen pages of fun.
Jennifer Worth wrote two sequels to this book:
Shadows of the Workhouse and
Farewell to the East End. The first year or two of PBS series "The Midwife" is based on these books.
Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression. Mildred Armstrong Kalish
This was a fun book. I enjoyed the author’s writing style and the experiences she shared. She included recipes, homemaking tips, etc. She said she grew up thinking that certain expressions were one word: agoodwoman, hardearnedmoney, agoodhardworker, alittleheathen,
agoodwoolshirt. Worth the read.
Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey. Lillian Schlissel
Great book! I have so much appreciation for those women. Just amazing some of the experiences they had. One of the women, Amelia Stewart Knight, was 3 months pregnant when they started the journey and nearly due toward the end when she was climbing up a mountain over rock, and back down the other side of the mountain. One woman talked about three days of rain with children and a newborn baby and nowhere to get dry. Another woman said that when they finally arrived to their destination, her husband drove her to the barren land on which sat a tiny sod hut and said something like, “Isn’t that the most beautiful sight you’ve ever seen?” The women never mentioned being pregnant in their journals/letters. The nearest they came was to saying “ill.” Amazing women!!!
In the end, a woman who came through the journey felt she had won her own victory. The test of the journey was whether or not she had been equal to the task of holding her family together against the sheer physical forces that threatened to spin them to the four winds of chance. It was against the continual threat of dissolution that the women had striven.
The Tin Ticket: The Heroic Journey of Australia’s Convict Women. Deborah J. Swiss
This was nearly edge-of-the-seat good. I could hardly put it down. Most of the narrative focuses on two Scottish teen girls sentenced to transportation to Van Diemans Land. Their paths later cross with that of a mother and her daughter who were also sentenced to transportation. It’s a compelling story. The women in this book triumphed over adversity beyond my imagination. I posted a more detailed review
here.
Farm Wife: A Self-Portrait, 1886-1896. Virginia E. McCormick
I enjoyed this book immensely. It is taken from the diaries of Margaret Dow Gebby, an Ohio farm wife. It set me down on a farm during the same time period when my ancestors farmed. The content is presented topically and is edited heavily from the original diary but the editor included some very helpful and insightful comments between diary entries. All of the diaries are available at the Ohio Historical Society. I wrote previously about this book
here.
A Fortunate Grandchild and
Time Remembered.
Miss Read (Dora Saint)
These are two brief books of memories and reminiscences of her childhood and her grandparents, aunts, and uncles. I love her language, not to mention her sweet reminiscences. This would be a great book for a descendant who had grand/great-grand parents who lived in England in the early 1920s. The pen and ink illustrations by Derek Crowe were fabulous. The books were also
featured as
a Wishful Wednesday post.
Annie's Ghosts: A Journey Into a Family Secret. Steve Luxenberg.
Luxenburg's mother had always claimed to be an only child. It wasn't until after his mother died that he learned that she had a sister who had been kept hidden for decades. Read it for the story, all the
while learning ways to search for an invisible female ancestor. (Surely you have one hidden somewhere behind a brick wall?) An earlier post about this book is
here
Mrs. Beeton's Every Day Cookery and House Keeping Book.
Mrs. Beeton
What list of women's history books would be complete without a recipe book? This one dates from the 1890s and includes some of the most unusual recipes I've ever seen. See more about it
here.
American Grit: A Woman's Letters from the Ohio Frontier. Emily Foster, compl.
This is a collection of letters written by Anna Briggs Bentley, a Quaker who, in 1826, moved from Maryland to Columbiana County, Ohio. Anna was about 30 when she moved to Ohio with her husband and their six children, all 12 or younger. One child died before the move and 6 more were born in Ohio. She left behind her mother and eight younger siblings in Maryland. She had been raised in a genteel family with the comforts of money, servants, the society of friends, local shops, etc. She was not a born pioneer, but she was strong-willed, determined, and willing, along with her family, to "carve a homestead out of virgin
forest with the sweat of their labors." As I read the letters I saw Anna move through the years from abject homesickness, to acceptance, to comfort. I highly recommend this book if you'd like a glimpse into the life of a frontier woman from 1826 onward. See a more detailed review is
here.
The Girl Who Drew Butterflies: How Maria Merian’s Art Changed Science. Joyce Sidman
This is a children’s book but probably written at a 5th-grade or higher level about Maria Merian, a girl who was born in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1647. Because her stepfather was a painter and engraver she learned to draw, to mix paints, and do various other things in his studio/shop. She was interested in butterflies, known then as “summer birds,” and was able to find the time to examine, observe, and draw them. She became a wife and mother but never gave up her love of watching and drawing nature. I thought this was a wonderful book and especially liked the combination of Maria’s own illustrations, additional drawings, and photographs to show details for the text.
Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters. Anne Boyd Rioux
This is the history of Little Women, including how it came to be, and Louisa May Alcott and her life and home/family challenges. Her father was not a great provider for the family and they lived in poverty most of their lives. Little Women is, to some extent, autobiographical. The author also discusses film versions of the book; its cultural and literary influence; whether it’s a book for boys as well as girls; and books and movies descended from the book.
In a way, I think of this book and
Little Women as a treatise on the worth of women's lives. Here are a few quotes that may lead you to think along those lines.
Abigail Alcott [Louisa's mother], said regarding her husband’s not earning a living for his family, “I do wish people who carry their heads in the clouds would occasionally take their bodies with them.”
In a paragraph discussing [Louisa's father] Bronson Alcott’s not earning a living for his family causing them to live in poverty, “Louisa once said in her father’s presence, ‘It requires three women to take care of a philosopher, and when the philosopher is old the three women are pretty well used up.’” And later in the paragraph, “During the Fruitlands episode, Abigail wrote in her journal, ‘A woman may perform the most disinterested duties. She may “die daily” in the cause of truth and righteousness. She lives neglected, dies forgotten. But a man who never performed in his whole life one self-defying act, but who has accidental gifts of genius, is celebrated by his contemporaries, while his name and works live on, from age to age. He is crowned with laurel, while scarce a stone may tell where she lies.’ Louisa also sought to redress the wrong of Abigail’s life, making it her mission to honor her mother’s legacy. If Mr. March is largely absent in Little Women, Marmee permeates every page.”
In a review of the film with Winona Ryder, “Syndicated columnist Donna Britt believed other reviewers’ warnings that ‘nothing much happens’ were tantamount to saying that women’s lives weren’t worth making films about. She praised the film for ‘honor[ing] life’s small wonders’ in a culture that is ‘hypnotized . . . by ever-more-wizardly special effects, stupid sex tricks and the “thrill” of cringing at yet another creative way to kill.’”
Letters of a Woman Homesteader. Elinore Pruitt Stewart
Elinore was a spunky lady and a great story-teller, but beyond that, she had a very positive outlook which shone through in her letters. And such experiences! She moved to Wyoming in 1909 as a young, widowed mother of a 2-year-old to be a housekeeper for a rancher. She determined to file her own claim for land and make a go of it. She married the rancher, but more, she also succeeded in claiming land and growing enough food to feed her family for a year.
When you think of me, you must think of me as one who is truly happy. It is true, I want a great many things I have n’t got, but I don’t want them enough to be discontented and not enjoy the many blessings that are
mine. I have my home among the blue mountains, my health, well-formed children, my clean, honest husband, my kind, gentle milk cows, my garden which I make myself. I have loads and loads of flowers which I tend
myself. There are lots of chickens, turkeys, and pigs which are my own special care. I have some slow old gentle horses and an old wagon. I can load up the kiddies and go where I please any time. I have the best, kindest neighbors and I have my dear absent friends. Do you wonder I am so happy? When I think of it all, I wonder how I can crowd all my joy into one short life.
Read a more detailed review
here.
Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin.
Jill Lepore
Benjamin Franklin’s sister, Jane Franklin Mecom, is an unknown; a common, ordinary woman who lived a quiet life doing what needed to be done to stay alive and help her family. She just happened to have a famous brother. You can read a previous post
here.
In talking about the challenge of writing a biography when so little about Jane exists, Lepore said,
This is dispiriting. For a long time, I was so discouraged that I abandoned the project altogether. I
thought about writing a novel instead. But I decided, in the end, to write a biography, a book meant not only as the life of Jane Franklin Mecom but, more, as a meditation on silence in the archives. I wanted
to write a history from the Reformation through the American Revolution by telling the story of a single life, using this most ordinary of lives to offer a history of history and to explain how history is written:
from what remains of the lives of the great, the bad, and, not as often, the good.
It's no wonder Lepore says, “History is what is written and can be found; what isn’t saved is lost, sunken and
rotted, eaten by earth.” And, “What remains of anyone’s life is what’s
kept.”
Happy reading!
--Nancy.
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