To believe in women
Subtitle: what lesbians have done for America--a history
By: Lillian Faderman.
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Published: 1999
Place of publication: Boston
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 434
ISBN-13: 9780395850107
Subjects: Lesbian feminism -- United States -- History.; Lesbians -- United States -- History.; Lesbianas -- Historia -- Estados Unidos.; Féminisme et lesbianisme -- États-Unis -- Histoire.; Lesbiennes -- États-Unis -- Histoire.; Lesbiennes.
Description: A reappraisal of women who are known by history but whose histories are incomplete, To Believe in Women examines how their lesbianism may in fact have facilitated their accomplishments.

Lillian Faderman persuasively argues that even before a "lesbian identity" was defined, many female leaders had what would now be called lesbian relationships, free from the constraints of traditional heterosexual arrangements, which might have impeded their pursuits in education, politics, professional life, and culture.
Table of contents: title: I. How American women got enfranchised. The loves and living arrangements of nineteenth-century suffrage leaders; title: Bringing the suffrage movement into the twentieth century : Anna Howard Shaw; title: Victory : Carrie Chapman Catt; title: Two steps forward; title: II. How America got a social conscience. Mother-hearts/lesbian-hearts; title: Social housekeeping : the inspiration of Jane Addams; title: Social housekeeping becomes a profession : Frances Kellor; title: Poisoning the source. III. How American women got educated. "Mental hermaphrodites" : pioneers in women's education; title: Making women's higher education even higher : M. Carey Thomas; title: The struggle to maintain women's leadership : Mary Emma Woolley; title: The triumph of Angelina : education in femininity. IV. How American women got into the professions. "When more women enter professions" : lesbian pioneering in the learned professions; title: Making places for women in medicine : Emily Blackwell; title: Carrying on : Martha May Eliot, M.D.; title: The rush to bake the pies and have the babies.