Classics Books

PREFACE The modern Woman Movement, like the modern Labour Movement, may be said to have begun in the Eighteenth century. The Labour movement arose out of the Industrial Revolution with its resultant tendency to over-population, to unrestricted competition, to social misery and disorder. The Woman movement appeared as an at first neglected by-product of the French Revolution with its impulses of general... more...

PREFACE. * * * * * It has been thought desirable that such papers of Margaret Fuller Ossoli as pertained to the condition, sphere and duties of Woman, should be collected and published together. The present volume contains, not only her "Woman in the Nineteenth Century,"—which has been before published, but for some years out of print, and inaccessible to readers who have sought it,—but... more...

CHAPTER I. Natural Rights.In the discussion of the question of woman's equality with man, I purpose to prove from the Bible, as I believe I can, that at the creation there was neither superiority nor inferiority ordained between Adam and Eve; and that the partial distinctions which have for ages existed, and which still exist, are of man's invention; and may, therefore with propriety, be... more...

A LESSON OF PATIENCE. I WAS very unhappy, from a variety of causes, definable and undefinable. My chambermaid had been cross for a week, and, by talking to my cook, had made her dissatisfied with her place. The mother of five little children, I felt that I had a weight of care and responsibility greater than I could support. I was unequal to the task. My spirits fell under its bare contemplation. Then... more...

CHAPTER I The Duchess of Newcastle. Mrs. Behn. Mrs. Manley In the many volumes containing the records of the past, the names of few women appear, and the number is still smaller of those who have won fame in art or literature. Sappho, however, has shown that poetic feeling and expression are not denied the sex; Jeanne d'Arc was chosen to free France; Mrs. Somerville excelled in mathematics; Maria... more...

CHAPTER I THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT The feminist movement can be dealt with in two ways: it can be treated as a sociological abstraction, and discussed at length in heavy monographs; or it can be taken as the sum of the action of a lot of women, and taken account of in the lives of individual women. The latter way would be called "journalistic," had not the late William James used it in his... more...

INTRODUCTION The present volume completes the story of woman as told in the series of which it forms part. The history of nations is, in its ultimate analysis, largely that of woman. Therefore this series in its wide inclusiveness forms a more than ordinarily interesting history. The present study of the women of America is innocent of theorizing or philosophy and from the nature of the subject the... more...

INTRODUCTION When the historian has described the rise and fall of empires and dynasties, and has recounted with care and exactness the details of the great political movements that have changed the map of continents, there remains the question: What was the cause of these revolutions in human society--what were the real motives that were operative in the hearts and minds of the persons in the great... more...

The Women of Prehistoric Britain It is to the unpremeditated contributions of savage and barbarous conditions of existence that we must look for those primal elements of social order which became fundamental in English life and character. Insomuch as those contributions are intimately connected with woman's life and work, they must be sought out and set in order if we are to trace the development... more...

CHAPTER I In the older conception, history was a record chiefly of battles, of intrigues, of wicked deeds; it was true that the evil that men did lived after them; at least, the even tenor of their ways was passed over without notice by the chroniclers, and only a salient point, a great battle or a great crime, attracted attention. If little but deeds of violence is recorded about men, still less... more...