Well-Read Lives: How Books Inspired a Generation of American Women
"A beautifully crafted monograph. . . . Highly recommended."--Choice"Well-Read Livesdeftly balances the big picture of Gilded Age literary culture with the specificity and uniqueness of its individual subjects. With nuance and insight, Sicherman makes a convincing case that private reading practices had a profound impact on Progressive women's public endeavors."--Journal of American History"An important book for those interested in issues of gender, literacy, or nineteenth-century American life. . . . A fine example of how historical scholarship about these issues can move between specific case studies and generalized trends or patterns."--Clio"Sicherman's analysis deepens our understanding of the nature of reading itself, exuding some of the very magic that books clearly held for these young women. . . . An extraordinary contribution to the history of the book, to women's history, and to our understanding of reading's power as a cultural resource for change."--Legacy"Great depth of scholarship and insightful analysis. With its wonderful readability it should also appeal to a more general audience, and will contribute to contemporary conversations about reading in a way that helps us avoid uninformed comparisons between reading today and in the past."--SHARP: Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing"An elegant historical survey. . . . Sicherman's well-chosen examples . . . make a good case for her argument that reading mattered crucially."--American Historical Review"An important study of the impact of reading on young women growing up in the Gilded Age."--American Studies"Sicherman's study of female reading is as inspirational, entertaining, and comforting as the books her subjects pursued and celebrated. This is truly a text to be reckoned with as both a model and resource of the complicated ways that readers make sense of their texts."--Reviews in American History"Beautifully written and meticulously researched."--Publishing Research Quartely"The research behind the individual case studies is thorough and rigorous, and the writing style is engaging. . . . A significant contribution to our understanding of the role of books in the lives of young American women of the period under consideration."--Library & Information History"Each chapter in this book could serve as a stand-alone essay for the reader who was looking for resources on these particular women. . . . A valuable resource for understanding Progressive Era women's culture."--Women and Social Movements in the United States"Well-Read Livesprovides a highly accessible, engaging examination of the latent potential in the female literary culture of the Gilded Age….This is a rewarding look into the power of reading to transform lives."--H-Net Reviews"This book offers a wonderful look into the reading lives of many women and should be praised for that contribution."--Southern Historian"Beautifully evokes a world in which women read to construct identity and build community. . . . Elegantly written essays . . . represent a significant contribution to the history of print culture in America. . . . [An] invaluable monograph."--Indiana Magazine of History"[Sicherman] writes beautifully, evoking the culture and milieu of late 19th-century America with sensitivity and great depth. . . . Sicherman's scholarship is particularly laudable because of the nuance she brings to the individual women portrayed. Hers is not a volume of sweeping generalizations, but of careful representations of the desires, values, and personal mythologies each of these women cultivated to become the kind of heroine each desired to be."--Books & Culture