Biographies of four of America's first women explorers: Annie S. Peek, Delia J. Akeley, Marguerite Harrison and Louise A. Boyd. Louise Boyd made numerous trips through the Arctic, including Spitzbergen, Franz Josef Land and the fiords of east Greenland. Marguerite Harrison made trips across Siberia.

"The history of African American women has become an important topic in the intellectual life of this country in the last fifteen years; and Darlene Clark Hine has been one of those most responsible for bringing the subject to its current level of importance." —from the Foreword by John Hope Franklin "In this absolutely needed collection of essays by one of the leading American historians of our generation, the richly intertwined community-making and self-making that shaped the historical experience of African American women shines out like a beacon." —Susan M. Reverby, Luella LaMer Associate Professor for Women's Studies, Wellesley College

Stephanie J. Shaw takes us into the inner world of American black professional women during the Jim Crow era. This is a story of struggle and empowerment, of the strength of a group of women who worked against daunting odds to improve the world for themselves and their people. Shaw's remarkable research into the lives of social workers, librarians, nurses, and teachers from the 1870s through the 1950s allows us to hear these women's voices for the first time. The women tell us, in their own words, about their families, their values, their expectations. We learn of the forces and factors that made them exceptional, and of the choices and commitments that made them leaders in their communities. What a Woman Ought to Be and to Do brings to life a world in which African-American families, communities, and schools worked to encourage the self-confidence, individual initiative, and social responsibility of girls. Shaw shows us how, in a society that denied black women full professional status, these girls embraced and in turn defined an ideal of "socially responsible individualism" that balanced private and public sphere responsibilities. A collective portrait of character shaped in the toughest circumstances, this book is more than a study of the socialization of these women as children and the organization of their work as adults. It is also a study of leadership—of how African American communities gave their daughters the power to succeed in and change a hostile world.

"The book contains a major statement on the comparative study of women--violence, aggression, and their psychosocial impact on women's lives."--Gilbert H. Herdt, University of Chicago "The book contains a major statement on the comparative study of women--violence, aggression, and their psychosocial impact on women's lives."--Gilbert H. Herdt, University of Chicago

A young woman born into a middle-class Afghan family describes the 1996 revolution in which the Taliban seized power in Kabul, the resulting changes in her life as a victim of Taliban fanaticism, and her eventual escape with her family.

Describes things that are disappearing, including automats, bridge parties, carbon paper, the draft, drive-in movies, girdles, leisure suits, telegrams, and vinyl records