Writing Women's Lives: American Women's History through Letters and Diaries

1. Sarah Kemble Knight: A Colonial Woman’s Journey, 1704-1705.

2. Mary Stafford: A Letter from the New World, 1711.

3. Elizabeth Magawley: A Woman Speaks Out: Letter to the Editor, 1730/31.

4. Eliza Lucas: On Managing a Southern Plantation, 1740.

5. Elizabeth Sprigs: The Plight of an Indentured Servant, 1756.

6. Phillis Wheatley: A Plea for Equal Rights for Negroes, 1774.

7. Abigail Adams: "Remember the Ladies": Letters on Women’s Rights, 1776.

8. Catherine Van Cortlandt: The Revolutionary War: Letters of a Loyalist Wife, 1776-1777.

9. Belanda: Petition of a Slave to the Massachusetts Legislature, 1782.

10. Martha Ballard: A Midwife’s Diary, 1787-1798.

11. Abigail Abbot Bailey: The Difficulty of Leaving an Abusive Husband, 1788-1789..

Part 2. A Growing Nation, 1789-1861.

12. Eliza Southgate Bowne: Letters of a New England Teenager, 1800-1801.

13. Mary and Henry Lee: New Ideas about Marriage, 1810-1816.

14. Anonymous: Cherokee Women’s Petition, 1817.

15. Sarah and Angelina Grimke: Letters on Abolitionism and Women’s Rights, 1837.

16. Sarah White Smith: On the Overland Trail, 1838.

17. Fanny Kemble: Diary from a Georgia Plantation, 1839.

18. Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Letters on Women’s Rights and Changing Gender Roles, 1840-1899.

19. Mary Paul: Letters from the Lowell Mills and a Utopian Community, 1845-1855.

20. Fanny Appleton Longfellow: First Childbirth with Ether, 1847.

21. Calista Hall, William Dorsey Pender, and Emily Fitzgerald: Letters about Birth Control and Abortion, 1849-1875.

22. Ellen Birdseye Wheaton: The Struggle Between Family Obligations and Self-Expression, 1850-1856.

23. Ellen Lee: On Teaching School in Indiana, 1852.

24. Emily Dickinson: The Language of Female Friendship: Letters to Susan Gilbert, 1852-1854.

25. Lucy Stone: A Women’s Right Advocate Contemplates Marriage, 1853-1855.

26. Ellen Spencer Clawson and Ellen Pratt McGary: Mormon Women’s Letters on Polygamy, 1856-1857..

Part 3: The Era of the Civil War and Reconstruction, 1861-1877.

27. Judith Cocks, Emily, Susan (Sukey) & Ersey, Harriet Newby, and Louisa Alexander: Letters from Slaves, 1795-1863.

28. Charlotte Forten: The Diary of an African-American Teacher and Reformer, 1854-1862.

29. Marry Chesnut: A Southern Aristocrat’s Diary During the Civil War, 1861-1865.

30. Cornelia Hancock: Letters of a Civil War, 1863-1865.

31. Elizabeth Haas Canfield: An Officer’s Wife in Indian Territory, 1867-1868.

32. Sister Monica: Diary of a Journey to Arizona, 1870.

33. Mary Abell: Letters of a Kansas Homesteader, 1871-1875.

Part 4: Expansion and Industrialization, 1877-1919.

34. Juanita Breckenridge: Letters of a Clergywoman, 1872-1893.

35. Mrs. A Beaumont, Jane E. Sobers, Mrs. H. Griswold, Alzina Rathburn, Mrs. Mary Travis, Live Pryor, Mrs. Callor, and Mrs. L. M. R. Pool: Letters to Susan B. Anthony on Suffrage and Equal Rights for Women, 1880.

36. Elizabeth Fedde: Social Worker in Brooklyn, 1883-1888.

37. Wilhelmine Wiebusch: A Young Immigrant Writes Home, 1884-1886.

38. Alice Hamilton: A Reformer at the Turn of the Century, 1893-1913.

39. Martha Farnsworth: The Campaign for Woman Suffrage, 1894-1914.

40. Zitkala-Sa (Gertrude Simmons Bonnin): The School Days of an Indian Girl, 1899(?).

41. Mother Jones: Letters of a Labor Organizer, 1901-1914.

42. Mabel S. Ulrich: A Wife, Mother, and Physicians, 1904-1932.

43. Martha Farnsworth and Henrietta Szold: Women’s Responses to New Technology, 1905-1916.

44. Anonymous: "A Bintel Brief": Letters from Jewish Immigrant Women, 1907-1910.

45. Maimie Pinzer: Letters of a Former Prostitute, 1910-1911.

46. Alice Hamilton: Peace Activist: 1915-1919..

Part 5: Prosperity, Depression, and War, 1919-1945.

47. Anonymous: Letters to the Children’s Bureau: Federal Aid for Women and Children, 1918-1928.

48. Mary Ritter Beard: On Knowledge, Politics, and Women’s Rights, 1921-1946.

49. Margaret Sanger: Letters on Birth Control, 1925-1928.

50. Martha Lavell: Diary of a College Woman, 1926-1929.

51. M. Carey Thomas: Letters from an Early Feminist, 1932.

52. Lorena Hickok: Letters on the Great Depression, 1934.

53. Ann Marie Low: A Dust Bowl Diary, 1934-1937.

54. Winifred Woodley: Diary of a Suburban Housewife, 1935-1040.

55. Catherine Lang, Polly Crow, Hazel M. Burke, Ethel Pendelbury La Palme, Katherine McReynolds, and Edith Sokol Speert: Letters from the Homefront and the Battlefront, 1941-1945.

56. Elizabeth Vaughan: A Woman in Captivity, 1942-1943.

57. Sonoko Iwata: Detention-Camp Letters, 1942-1943.

58. Angusta Clawson: Shipyard Diary of a Woman Welder, 1943..

Part 6: Modern America, 1945 to the Present.

59. Anonymous: Questioning the Domestic Ideology: Letters to Betty Friedan on The Feminine Mystique, 1963.

60. Sharon Lane and Lynda Van Devanter: Letters from Vietnam, 1969.

61. Michelle Harrison: A Woman Doctor Confronts the Medical System, 1970s.

62. Bella Abzug (A Congressional Diary, 1971.

63. Anne Braden: An Open Letter on Gender and Race in the South, 1972.

64. Johanna Von Gottfried: Diary from the California Farm Workers Movement, 1973.

65. Nan Bishop, Sarah Hamilton, and Clare Bowman: Divorce and Single Motherhood, 1976-1977.

66. Toi Derricotte: Black in a White Neighborhood, 1977-1978.

67. Elaine Marcus Starkman: The Elderly and the Sandwich Generation, 1987-1990.

68. Marsha Carow Markman: Breast Cancer Diary, 1990.

69. Amparo Ramirez: An Undocumented Immigrant Writes to Her Children, 1988-1990.