Indian, European, and African women of seventeenth and eighteenth-century America were defenders of their native land, pioneers on the frontier, willing immigrants, and courageous slaves. They were also - as traditional scholarship tends to omit - as important as men in shaping American culture and history. This remarkable work is a gripping portrait that gives early-American women their proper place in history.
Carol Berkin is Professor of History at the City University of New York Graduate Center. She is the author of A Brilliant Solution: Inventing the American Constitution, Women's Voices/Women's Lives: Documents in Early American History, and coeditor, with Mary Beth Norton, of Women of America: A History.
What People are Saying About This
Mary Beth. Norton
The best available introduction to the lives of women in colonial and revolutionary America…this lively volume will quickly become the standard against which subsequent narratives are measured. —(Mary Beth Norton, Cornell University)
Linda K. Kerber
Carol Berkin imposes order on the complexity of early American history in this gracefully written book. Her incisive biographical sketches beckon the reader through a narrative packed with fresh information and interpretation. First Generations is the easiest way to catch up with the new scholarship in gender, class, and race relations. —(Linda K. Kerber, University of Iowa)
