American Women Writers to 1800 Author:Oxford University Press This anthology advances the ongoing process of filling documentary and intellectual gaps in our knowledge of early American culture. Including the writings of more than ninety women (many of whom have never before been published), the anthology captures cultural and individual diversity in early America. The collection both complements and exten... more »ds earlier studies of colonial and revolutionary America with works that observe the natural resources of the "New World", the proliferation of religious movements, racial relations between Native Americans, African-Americans, and European settlers, and patriotic and loyalist sympathies during the Revolutionary years. Other issues raised include themes such as women's education, girlhood, childbirth, sexuality, the legal status of women, domestic economy, and the rise of feminist philosophies at the end of the 18th century. Along with better known Massachusetts writers such as Bradstreet, Rowlandson, and Knight, this collection presents works by authors from other New England, mid-Atlantic, and southern colonies, by African American and Native American women, and by women who explored the frontier regions. This anthology offers rich ground for a radical rethinking of early American women's lives and writings, and challenges our assumptions about early America itself.« less