The Columbia documentary history of American women since 1941 / edited by Harriet Sigerman.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [665]-678) and index.

PART 1. WARRIORS ON THE HOMEFRONT: AMERICAN WOMEN AND WORLD WAR II : We want to live, not merely exist / A Black women's letter to FDR -- I got caught up in that patriotic 'Win the war' / Juanita Loveless -- A guidebook for women war workers: Wanted women in war industry -- Hitler was the one that got us out of the white folks' kitchen / Fanny Christina Hill -- The Changes started when I first started working / Beatrice Morales Clifton -- I felt degraded, humiliated, and overwhelmed / Yoshiko Uchida -- Saying 'No" was the only way you could become a WAVE / Mary Meigs -- I believe the war was the beginning of my seeing things / Peggy Terry -- There was a prejudice against conscientious objectors / Wilma and William Ludlow -- Please come back to me soon / Letters from the home front -- The girls proved to be simply remarkable / Jacqueline Cochran -- Women are idealistic / Eleanor Roosevelt -- I learned things I didn't even know happened in the world / Susan Laughlin -- The war marked me / Betty Basye Hutchinson.

PART 2. THE UNQUIET DECADE: DOMESTICITY, WORK, AND SOCIAL ACTIVISM IN POSTWAR AMERICA : Modern woman: the lost sex / Marynia Farnham and Ferdinand Lundberg -- To rescue us wretched slaves / Adlai Stevenson -- I knew I wasn't going to make it ... to the "Colored Ladies' Toilet" / Melba Pattilo Beals -- Things cannot go on as they are in Dixie / Lillian Smith -- I speak as a woman / Margaret Chase Smith -- I didn't think I should have to give it up / Rosa Parks -- It was the longest block I ever walked in my whole life / Elizabeth Eckford -- Want ads / Atlanta Journal-Constitution -- We saw women as a vehicle for a new peace action / Dagmar Wilson -- The Union wasn't for us Blacks / Florence Rice -- A grim specter has crept upon us / Rachel Carson -- Is this America? / Fannie Lou Hamer -- Having a baby inside me is the only time I'm really alive / Anonymous -- Before I knew it, I was caught up / Adrienne Mann -- I was there to help them / Mary Dora Jones and Nannie Washburn -- The newest glamour girl of our times / Helen Gurley Brown.

PART 3. MAKING THE WORLD ANEW: DIFFERENT PATHS TO SEXUAL EQUALITY : I felt the world was passing me by / Herma L. Snider -- The problem that has no name / Betty Friedan -- The time has come for a new movement toward true equality / Civil Rights Act: Title VII, 1964 ; National Organization for Women (NOW) -- 1968, a year of exhilaration / Dana Densmore -- Women are an oppressed class / Redstockings Manifesto -- Your time is now, my sisters / Shirley Chisholm -- What is liberation / Editorial in 'Women: a Journal of Liberation' -- I gave every ounce of time and energy ... to let people know how ghastly the war was / Lucy Whitaker Haissler -- New approaches to the study of women in American history / Gerda Lerner -- Talking want ad : from a 'Women's Song Book' / Janet Smith -- Consciousness: that's exactly why we are here / Vivian Gornick -- The male god language is just so overwhelming to me / Terri Berthiaume Hawthorne -- I want the right to be Black and me / Margaret Wright -- I am angry for my sisters / A letter to Ms. magazine -- A new revolution within a revolution has begun / Jennie V. Chavez -- The woman is the victim / Sarah Weddington -- Roe vs. Wade / The United States Supreme Court -- Our bodies, ourselves / Boston Women's Health Book Collective -- What it's like to be me / A round table of perspectives by young Ms. readers -- You can't talk about women's rights until we include all women / Dorothy Bolden -- We remember our Jewish sisters: A Jewish women's Haggadah / Aviva Cantor Zuckoff -- Recognizing ourselves in history / Michelle Russell -- We are here to move history forward / Declaration of American Women -- Black women are inherently valuable / Combahee River Collective -- The positive woman know who she is / Phyllis Schlafly -- Dear Mary Catherine / A collection of letters by rural Kentucky women.

PART 4. RETRENCHMENT: GAINS AND LOSSES DURING THE REAGAN/BUSH ERA : We support equal rights and equal opportunities for women / 1980 Republican Party Platform -- You just want to do a little better / Wendy Robinson Brower -- Good husbands make good leaders / Jerry Falwell -- Homemakers need the Equal Rights Amendment / Homemakers' Equal Rights Association -- We are gathering because life on the precipice is intolerable / Women's Pentagon Action -- Liberation isn't finished / Betty Friedan -- The best-kept secret about men / Ellen Kreidman -- An ethic of care / Carol Gilligan -- An equality of sacrifice / Coalition on Women and the Budget -- I proudly accept your nomination / Geraldine Ferraro -- It created a myth among women / Smart Women, Foolish Choices -- It's a gentle life, sometimes / Frances Wells Burck, ed. -- Something moved-some possibility of trust was created / Rachel Bagby -- This motherhood business / Nina Barrett -- The Women's 'Part' / Pope John Paul II, Apostolic Letter on Women -- The huge, hidden emotional cost to women / Arlie Hochschild -- The high-performing career-and-family woman can be a major player / Felice Schwartz -- Our holding will allow some governmental regulation of abortion / United States Supreme Court -- How long can this go on? / Catherine Whitney -- I want the chance to excel / Patricia Godley -- Cherish your home connections / Barbara Bush -- Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus / John Gray -- I am not given to fantasy / Anita Hill -- You have made us ladies again / Sarah J. McCarthy -- The educational system is not meeting girls' needs / How Schools Shortchange Girls -- The myth of the miserable working woman / Rosalind C. Barnett and Caryl Rivers -- Rape in America is a tragedy of youth / Rape in America: A Report to the Nation -- A women's right to reproductive choice is one of those fundamental liberties / Justice Harry Blackmun, Planned Parenthood V. Casey -- Just another lifestyle choice / Vice President Dan Quayle -- Few generalizations to be made about single mothers / Roberto Suro.

PART 5. THE THIRD WAVE: FEMINISM AND FAMILY VALUES IN THE 1990S : It was payback time / Eloise Salholz, et al. -- The military services shall open up more specialties and assignments to women / Defense Department Directive, 1993 -- The Family Medical Leave Act of 1993 -- We won't stop fighting / Naomi Wolf -- Domestic violence is a staggering social problem / Family Violence Prevention Fund - We're coming home, America / Torie Osborn -- This extra ordinary chance and challenge / Ruth Bader Ginsburg -- I am not giving up / David Anthony Forrester -- Women's rights are human rights / Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, 1995 -- You gotta do what you gotta do / Virginia Schein -- I have long opposed government recognition of same-gender marriages / President Bill Clinton -- To end welfare as we know it / Welfare Reform Legislation - Our society's ugly secret / Virginia Macken Fitzsimmons -- All mommies are monsters / Erica Jong -- A woman is to submit herself to her husband / Baptist Faith and Message -- It was now or never / Doris Haddock -- The modern diva of domesticity / Molly O'Neill -- Our biology hasn't changed one bit / Claudia Kalb, et al. -- Approval of the abortion pill / Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Directive -- I will work my heart out for you / Hillary Rodham Clinton.

PART 6. SHAPING A NEW MILLENNIUM: OLD PROBLEMS AND NEW VISIONS : To be known on out own terms / Kate Shanley -- No one teaches women how to know pleasure / Amy Larocca -- I am still single / Lynne Hektor -- Best practices / Catalyst -- To raise a successful daughter / Nicky Marone -- It's extremely disheartening to see how far we have not come / Reed Abelson -- When women speak their minds, they're seen as harsh / Neela Banerjee -- Out of our sheer humanity comes common ground / Elizabeth Birch -- I feel I'm neither here nor there / Diane K. Shah -- Raising kids is like competing in a triathlon / Barbara Kantrowitz -- The fruit of a patriarchal system / Barbara Newman -- We must find community out of differences / Gerda Lerner -- We will keep moving forward / National Organization of Women (NOW) -- The future is ours to lose / Naomi Wolf -- Breaking tradition / Janice Mirikitani.