WE THE WOMEN

Profiles of courageous women.

Emmy Award-winning journalist O’Donnell, assisted by Brower, pays homage to scores of women who played a decisive role in the nation’s history. In 35 chapters, she focuses on five periods: 1776-1826, America’s first 50 years; 1826-76, encompassing the Seneca Falls Convention and the Civil War; 1876-1926, the Gilded Age and Progressivism; 1926-76, marked by war and social unrest; and 1976 to the present. Although several women are likely to be familiar to readers—Eleanor Roosevelt, Margaret Sanger, Frances Perkins—many more may be fresh discoveries. Some were first in their field: Phillis Wheatley, for one, the first African American woman to publish a book of poems, and Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman admitted to a medical school. O’Donnell’s capacious roundup of “hidden heroes” includes abolitionists and suffragists, writers and artists, scientists, lawyers, and teachers. There’s Mercy Otis Warren, a leading 18th-century intellectual whose political writings influenced the Bill of Rights and who—when she was nearly 80—wrote a three-volume history of the American Revolution. Deborah Sampson, disguised as a man, fought in Washington’s army. Sarah and Angelina Grimké stand out as the only white Southern women to become prominent abolitionists. Susan and Susette La Flesche, members of the Omaha Tribe, fought for Native Americans’ rights and survival in the late-19th century. Emily Warren Roebling oversaw the building of the Brooklyn Bridge when her husband, the project’s chief engineer, became incapacitated. Tessie Prevost Williams was one of four first-graders who, in 1960, integrated New Orleans public schools. While she has witnessed the power that women have achieved during her own lifetime, O’Donnell acknowledges that the fight for full equality still goes on.

An inspiring contribution to the 250th celebration of the nation’s founding.