Contains 24 original essays by leading scholars on the most critical themes and topics in American women's history. Such topics includes the colonial family, antebellum reform, the Civil War, marriage, health, sexuality, education, immigration, World War II, work, consumer culture, and feminism. Differences among women rooted in race, ethnicity, class, and region are highlighted throughout.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [433]-480) and index.

The imperial gaze : Native American, African American, and colonial women in European eyes / Kirsten Fischer -- Slavery and the slave trade / Jennifer L. Morgan -- Contact and conquest in colonial North America / Gwenn A. Miller -- Building colonies, defining families / Ann M. Little -- Sinners and saints : women and religion in colonial America / Susan Juster -- A revolution for whom? Women in the era of the American revolution / Jan E. Lewis -- Gender and class formations in the antebellum North / Catherine Kelly -- Religion, reform, and radicalism in the antebellum era / Nancy A. Hewitt --Conflicts and cultures in the west / Lisbeth Haas -- Rural women / Marli F. Weiner -- The Civil War era / Thavolia Glymph -- Marriage, property, and class / Amy Dru Stanley -- Health, sciences, and sexualities in Victorian America / Louise Michele Newman -- Education and the professions / Lynn D. Gordon -- Wage-earning women / Annelise Orleck -- Consumer cultures / Susan Porter Benson -- Urban spaces and popular cultures, 1890-1930 / Nan Enstad -- Women on the move : migration and immigration / Ardis Cameron -- Women's movements, 1880s-1920s / Kirsten Delegard -- Medicine, law, and the state : the history of reproduction / Leslie J. Reagan -- The Great Depression and World War II / Karen Anderson -- Rewriting postwar women's history, 1945-1960 / Joanne Meyerowitz -- Civil rights and Black liberation / Steven F. Lawson -- Second-wave feminism / Rosalyn Baxandall and Linda Gordon.