Intertwined Lives
Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and Their Circle
Written by Lois W. Banner

Format: Trade Paperback, 576 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: December 7, 2004
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-0-679-77612-3 (0-679-77612-5)

A uniquely revealing biography of two eminent twentieth-century American women. Close friends for much of their lives, Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead met at Barnard College in 1922, when Mead was a student, Benedict a teacher. They became sexual partners (though both married), and pioneered in the then male-dominated discipline of... Read more >

The Lonely Soldier
The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq
Written by Helen Benedict

Format: Trade Paperback, 280 pages
Publisher: Beacon Press
On Sale: April 1, 2010
Price: $18.00
ISBN: 978-0-8070-6149-7 (0-8070-6149-2)

More American women have fought and died in Iraq than in any war since World War Two, yet as soldiers they are still painfully alone. In Iraq, only one in ten troops is a woman, and she often serves in a unit with few other women or none at all. This... Read more >

Civil War Wives
The Lives & Times of Angelina Grimke Weld, Varina Howell Davis & Julia Dent Grant
Written by Carol Berkin

Format: Trade Paperback, 384 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: November 2, 2010
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-1-4000-9578-0 (1-4000-9578-6)

Here are the life stories of three women who connect us to our national past and provide windows onto a social and political landscape that is strangely familiar yet shockingly foreign.

Berkin focuses on three “accidental heroes” who left behind sufficient records to allow their voices to be heard clearly and to... Read more >

Revolutionary Mothers
Women in the Struggle for America's Independence
Written by Carol Berkin

Format: Trade Paperback, 224 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: February 14, 2006
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-1-4000-7532-4 (1-4000-7532-7)

The American Revolution was a home-front war that brought scarcity, bloodshed, and danger into the life of every American, and Carol Berkin shows us that women played a vital role throughout the struggle.

Berkin takes us into the ordinary moments of extraordinary lives. We see women boycotting British goods in the years... Read more >

Class Action
The Landmark Case that Changed Sexual Harassment Law
Written by Clara Bingham and Laura Leedy Gansler

Format: Trade Paperback, 400 pages
Publisher: Anchor
On Sale: October 14, 2003
Price: $14.00
ISBN: 978-0-385-49613-1 (0-385-49613-3)

In the tradition of A Civil Action and Erin Brockovitch, Class Action is a story of intrigue and injustice as dramatic as fiction but all the more poignant because it is true.

In the coldest reaches of northern Minnesota, a group of women endured a shocking degree of sexual harassment—until one of... Read more >

They Fought Like Demons
Women Soldiers in the Civil War
Written by De Anne Blanton and Lauren M. Cook

Format: Trade Paperback, 304 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: September 9, 2003
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-1-4000-3315-7 (1-4000-3315-2)

“Albert Cashier” served three years in the Union Army and passed successfully as a man until 1911 when the aging veteran was revealed to be a woman named Jennie Hodgers. Frances Clayton kept fighting even after her husband was gunned down in front of her at the Battle of Murfreesboro. And... Read more >

Slacks and Calluses
Our Summer in a Bomber Factory
Written by Constance Bowman
Illustrated by Clara Marie Allen

Format: Trade Paperback, 200 pages
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
On Sale: October 17, 2004
Price: $15.95
ISBN: 978-1-56098-368-2 (1-56098-368-X)

In 1943 two spirited young teachers decided to do their part for the war effort by spending their summer vacation working the swing shift on a B-24 production line at a San Diego bomber plant. Entering a male-dominated realm of welding torches and bomb bays, they learned to use tools that... Read more >

Great Dames
What I Learned from Older Women
Written by Marie Brenner

Format: Trade Paperback, 256 pages
Publisher: Broadway
On Sale: April 10, 2001
Price: $13.95
ISBN: 978-0-609-80709-5 (0-609-80709-9)

They are ten outstanding women of the twentieth century. Each had an aura. They were mighty warriors and social leaders, women of aspirations who persevered. They lived through the Great Depression and a world war. Circumstances did not defeat them. They played on Broadway and in Washington. They had glamour, style... Read more >

Breaking Out
VMI and the Coming of Women
Written by Laura Fairchild Brodie

Format: Trade Paperback, 384 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: May 15, 2001
Price: $14.00
ISBN: 978-0-375-70581-6 (0-375-70581-3)

Brodie takes us into the meetings where every aspect of life at VMI was analyzed from the per-spective of a woman's presence: housing, clothing, haircuts, dating, and the infamous "Ratline"—the months of physical exertion, minimal sleep, and verbal harassment to which entering cadets are subjected. Throughout the process the administration's aim... Read more >

A Queer History of the United States

Written by Michael Bronski

Format: Trade Paperback, 312 pages
Publisher: Beacon Press
On Sale: May 15, 2012
Price: $17.00
ISBN: 978-0-8070-4465-0 (0-8070-4465-2)

*2011 ALA Stonewall Israel Fishman Non-Fiction Award

The first book to cover the entirety of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender history, from pre-1492 to the present.

In the 1620s, Thomas Morton broke from Plymouth Colony and founded Merrymount, which celebrated same-sex desire, atheism, and interracial marriage. Transgender evangelist Jemima Wilkinson, in the early... Read more >

A Wasp Among Eagles
A Woman Military Test Pilot in World War II
Written by Ann Carl

Format: Trade Paperback, 152 pages
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
On Sale: June 22, 2010
Price: $14.95
ISBN: 978-1-56098-870-0 (1-56098-870-3)

Before World War II most Americans did not believe that the average woman could fly professionally, but during the war more than a thousand women pilots proved them wrong. These were the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs), who served as military flyers on the home front. In March 1944 one of... Read more >

The Murder of Helen Jewett

Written by Patricia Cline Cohen

Format: Trade Paperback, 512 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: June 29, 1999
Price: $17.00
ISBN: 978-0-679-74075-9 (0-679-74075-9)

A 1998 New York Times Notable Book of the Year

In 1836, the murder of a young prostitute made headlines in New York City and around the country, inaugurating a sex-and-death sensationalism in news reporting that haunts us today. Patricia Cline Cohen goes behind these first lurid accounts to reconstruct the story... Read more >

Jesus, Jobs, and Justice
African American Women and Religion
Written by Bettye Collier-Thomas

Format: Hardcover, 736 pages
Publisher: Knopf
On Sale: February 2, 2010
Price: $37.50
ISBN: 978-1-4000-4420-7 (1-4000-4420-0)

Winner of the 2011 Darlene Clark Hine Award
Winner of the National Women's Political Caucus 2010 Exceptional Merit in Media Award


“The Negroes must have Jesus, Jobs, and Justice,” declared Nannie Helen Burroughs, a nationally known figure among black and white leaders and an architect of the Woman’s Convention of the National Baptist... Read more >

Seafaring Women
Adventures of Pirate Queens, Female Stowaways, and Sailors' Wives
Written by David Cordingly

Format: Trade Paperback, 320 pages
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
On Sale: March 12, 2002
Price: $17.00
ISBN: 978-0-375-75872-0 (0-375-75872-0)

For centuries, the sea has been regarded as a male domain, but in this illuminating historical narrative, maritime scholar David Cordingly shows that an astonishing number of women went to sea in the great age of sail. Some traveled as the wives or mistresses of captains; others were smuggled aboard by... Read more >

Faith and Betrayal
A Pioneer Woman's Passage in the American West
Written by Sally Denton

Format: Trade Paperback, 240 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: July 11, 2006
Price: $14.00
ISBN: 978-1-4000-3473-4 (1-4000-3473-6)

In the 1850s, Jean Rio, a deeply spiritual widow, was moved by the promises of Mormon missionaries and set out from England for Utah. Traveling across the Atlantic by steamer, up the Mississippi by riverboat, and westward by wagon, Rio kept a detailed diary of her extraordinary journey.

In Faith and Betrayal... Read more >

The Woman Behind the New Deal
The Life and Legacy of Frances Perkins, Social Security, Unemployment Insurance,
Written by Kirstin Downey

Format: Trade Paperback, 496 pages
Publisher: Anchor
On Sale: February 23, 2010
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-1-4000-7856-1 (1-4000-7856-3)

One of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s closest friends and the first female secretary of labor, Perkins capitalized on the president’s political savvy and popularity to enact most of the Depression-era programs that are today considered essential parts of the country’s social safety network.

Frances Perkins is no longer a household name, yet... Read more >

Freedom in the Family
A Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights
Written by Tananarive Due and Patricia Stephens Due

Format: Trade Paperback, 416 pages
Publisher: One World/Ballantine
On Sale: December 30, 2003
Price: $23.00
ISBN: 978-0-345-44734-0 (0-345-44734-4)

BCALA Literary Award Winner - 2004 (Fiction; Sponsored by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association)

Patricia Stephens Due fought for justice during the height of the Civil Rights era, surrendering her freedom to ensure that the rights of others might someday be protected.Patricia's daughter, Tananarive, grew up deeply enmeshed in... Read more >

The Bobbed Haired Bandit
A Story of Crime and Celebrity in 1920s New York
Written by Stephen Duncombe and Andrew Mattson

Format: Trade Paperback, 416 pages
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
On Sale: April 10, 2007
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-8129-7735-6 (0-8129-7735-1)

On January 5, 1924, a well-dressed young woman, accompanied by a male companion, walked into a Brooklyn grocery, pulled a “baby automatic” from the pocket of her fur coat, emptied the cash register, and escaped into the night. Dubbed “the Bobbed Haired Bandit” by the press, the petite thief continued her... Read more >

For Her Own Good
Two Centuries of the Experts Advice to Women
Written by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English

Format: Trade Paperback, 432 pages
Publisher: Anchor
On Sale: January 4, 2005
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-1-4000-7800-4 (1-4000-7800-8)

Updated to cover the 25 years since it was first published, this brilliant and wonderfully written women's history classic exposes the myths told to women in the name of science.

Since the the nineteenth century, "experts" have been telling women how to take care of themselves. Generations of highly respected mainstream physicians... Read more >

First Family
Abigail and John Adams
Written by Joseph J. Ellis

Format: Trade Paperback, 320 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: September 6, 2011
Price: $15.95
ISBN: 978-0-307-38999-2 (0-307-38999-5)

In this rich and engrossing account, John and Abigail Adams come to life against the backdrop of the Republic’s tenuous early years.

Drawing on over 1,200 letters exchanged between the couple, Ellis tells a story both personal and panoramic. We learn about the many years Abigail and John spent apart as John’s... Read more >

Generation Roe
Inside the Future of the Pro-Choice Movement
Written by Sarah Erdreich

Format: Trade Paperback, 272 pages
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
On Sale: March 26, 2013
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-1-60980-458-9 (1-60980-458-9)

Strong support among women was key to Obama’s reelection. According to author Sarah Erdreich, it is time for Barack Obama, forty years after Roe v. Wade, to finally help demystify abortion. One-third of all American women will have an abortion by the time they are 45, and most of those women are already... Read more >

American Plastic
Boob Jobs, Credit Cards, and Our Quest for Perfection
Written by Laurie Essig

Format: Trade Paperback, 248 pages
Publisher: Beacon Press
On Sale: November 8, 2011
Price: $20.00
ISBN: 978-0-8070-0323-7 (0-8070-0323-9)

The story of how credit and cosmetic surgery have created a subprime mortgage crisis of the body.

In this provocative book, sociologist Laurie Essig traces the history of plastic surgery, tracks the effect of fashion and porn on our desire to “fix” ourselves, and explores our image- and youth-obsessed culture. In over... Read more >

My Mother's Wars

Written by Lillian Faderman

Format: Hardcover, 264 pages
Publisher: Beacon Press
On Sale: March 5, 2013
Price: $25.95
ISBN: 978-0-8070-5052-1 (0-8070-5052-0)

A story of love, war, and life as a Jewish immigrant in the squalid factories and lively dance halls of New York’s Garment District in the 1930s, My Mother’s Wars is the memoir Lillian Faderman’s mother was never able to write. The daughter delves into her mother’s past to tell the... Read more >

Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Keckly
The Remarkable Story of the Friendship Between a First Lady and a Former Slave
Written by Jennifer Fleischner

Format: Trade Paperback, 400 pages
Publisher: Broadway
On Sale: February 10, 2004
Price: $16.99
ISBN: 978-0-7679-0259-5 (0-7679-0259-9)

Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Keckly is a vibrant social history set against the backdrop of the Antebellum south and the Civil War that recreates the lives and friendship of two exceptional women: First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln and her mulatto dressmaker, Elizabeth Keckly.

Historian Jennifer Fleischner allows us to glimpse the... Read more >

No Turning Back
The History of Feminism and the Future of Women
Written by Estelle Freedman

Format: Trade Paperback, 464 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books
On Sale: January 1, 2003
Price: $17.00
ISBN: 978-0-345-45053-1 (0-345-45053-1)

2002 Outstanding Academic Title in History, Geography, & Area Studies
—CHOICE Magazine (American Library Association)

A Library Journal Best Books of 2002

Feminism — alive or dead? According to Estelle Freedman, Professor of History and a founder of the Program in Feminist Studies at Stanford University, feminism is not only clearly alive and well... Read more >