AMERICAN WOMEN WHO SCORED FIRSTS

Aylesa Forsee offers a grab bag of accomplishment in this series of biographies. In presenting compact and unembroidered lives of American women who in one field or another pioneered in the forest of social resistance, she spans a large and varying terrain. Amelia Earhart, Marian Anderson, Lillian Wald, Agnes de Mille, Florence Ellinwood Allen, Katharine Cornell, Eleanor Roosevelt, Juliette Gordon Low, Marguerite Higgins, Kate Smith, all take their place in her gallery of celebrities, where they shine, more as a result of their own ability than from the somewhat bland treatment given them by their biographer.