Women of Valor: The Struggle Againist the Great Depression as told in Their Own Life Stories [Paperback]

Not all women were victims of the gravest economic crisis in the nation's history. Many were talented fighters who helped to shape the response to the expression by government and labor, in public and private arenas. Sixteen of their stories-pieces of autobiography-have been gathered in this striking book. The women include Mary Simkhovitch and Lillian Wald, influential settlement leaders; Eleanor Roosevelt; Dorothy Day and Margaret Bourke-White, journalists who championed the poor and oppressed; Frances Perkins, Mary Anderson, Louise Armstrong, and Hallie Flanagan, who helped forge New Deal programs; Anzia Yezierska and Ellen Tarry, writers who found ways to survive; and Vera Weisbord, Ella Reeve Bloor, Meridel Le Sueur, Lucy mason, and Mary Heaton Vorse, all active in labor and political struggles. These extraordinary women confronted the problems that affected ordinary women. Their stories will rekindle interest in the Depression decade as a rich period in 20th-century women's history.Bernard Sternsher is Distinguished University Professor of History at Bowling Green State University; among his many books are the award-winningRexford Tugwell and the New DealandHitting Home: The Great Depression in Town and Country. Judith Sealander is Professor of History at Wright State University and author ofAs Minority Becomes Majority.

Valuable...a worthy addition to the growing canon of primary sources concerning both American women's history and the history of the depression. Journal of American History

A landmark collection...lucid, well organized, and simply extraordinary. Mary Banas,Booklist

This welcome history casts a light on the critical but often overlooked roles played by women in the 1930s...and each reveals a personal courage. Publishers Weekly