Books That Changed the World, by American Women

Related Resources • Top 100 in Women's History • 100 Most Important Women of World History • 100 Books That Changed the World, by American Women • 100 Most Important Non-Fiction Books by 20th Century Women • Top 100 in Women's History - on the Net • More Lists of "Top Women of..."

"By MOST IMPORTANT, we mean books that had a significant social or cultural impact -- that is, works that changed the way Americans think or live their lives. These works can be speeches, novels and non-fiction. For example, Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" is already on our list for the impact it made in spearheading the modern environmental movement, launching Earth Day, etc. (The speeches of Helen Keller and Sojourner Truth, for example, are also a possibility for this category.)"

Here are some nominations I'll be making for this list, all with links to online etexts or an online bookstore for further information:

On the Equality of the Sexes
by Judith Sargent Murray
Published before Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1892) but forgotten until its revival in the 1960s feminist movement by Alice Rossi.
(compare prices)

Uncle Tom's Cabin
by Harriet Beecher Stowe; Alfred Kazin (Introduction)
Credited by many, including Abraham Lincoln, for increasing abolitionist sentiment in the North and speeding the end of American slavery.
(compare prices)

The Yellow Wallpaper: And Other Stories (Dover Thrift Editions)
by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
This short story documented the treatment of women in the 19th century by the medical profession. Can you imagine: diagnosing an intelligent woman with a mental problem -- perhaps general depression, perhaps post-partum depression -- and prescribing total abstinence from mental challenge?
(compare prices) (online edition of "The Yellow Wallpaper")

Twenty Years at Hull-House : With Autobiographical Notes
by Jane Addams
Her own story of the founding of a settlement house. Her work inspired not only the establishment of more settlement houses, but the founding of social work as a profession and sociology as a serious academic subject of study.
(compare prices)

Silent Spring
by Rachel Carson
Key to the 20th century environmentalist movement. Some would add that the book is also instrumental in the possibility of saving the world and humanity from environmental destruction.
(compare prices)

The Feminine Mystique
by Betty Friedan
The book that named the nameless misery of suburban postwar American women, and helped many to decide to change their lives. The feminist revival of the 1960s owes its existence in large part to this book.
(compare prices)

You're invited to send your nominations for this list directly to Debra Michals at dam3385@is.nyu.edu. You can also post your list to the discussion on this topic at the Women's History Forum and join the discussion there.  (I've sent whatever I received to Debra Michals, too, so she won't miss any of your ideas.)

Author: Jone Johnson Lewis.
Title: "100 Books That Changed the World, by American Women"
This URL: http://womenshistory.about.com/library/weekly/bl990610b.htm

Text copyright 1999-2001 © Jone Johnson Lewis. All rights reserved.

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