Well-Read Lives

by Barbara Sicherman

In a compelling approach structured as theme and variations, Barbara Sicherman offers insightful profiles of a number of accomplished women born in America's Gilded Age who lost--and found--themselves in books, and worked out a new life purpose around them.

Some women, like Edith and Alice Hamilton, M. Carey Thomas, and Jane Addams, grew up in households filled with books, while less privileged women found alternative routes to expressive literacy. Jewish immigrants Hilda Satt Polacheck, Rose Cohen, and Mary Antin acquired new identities in the English-language books they found in settlement houses and libraries, while African Americans like Ida B. Wells relied mainly on institutions of their own creation, even as they sought to develop a literature of their own.

It is Sicherman's masterful contribution to show that however the skill of reading was acquired, under the right circumstances, adolescent reading was truly transformative in constructing female identity, stirring imaginations, and fostering ambition. With Little Women 's Jo March often serving as a youthful model of independence, girls and young women created communities of learning, imagination, and emotional connection around literary activities in ways that helped them imagine, and later attain, public identities. Reading themselves into quest plots and into male as well as female roles, these young women went on to create an unparalleled record of achievement as intellectuals, educators, and social reformers. Sicherman's graceful study reveals the centrality of the era's culture of reading and sheds new light on these women's Progressive-Era careers.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Books About Books, Biography, Womens

392 pages, Paperback

First published April 15, 2010

About the author

I write about women, privileged and not, real (Jane Addams, Ida B. Wells, Edith and Alice Hamilton, Charlotte Perkins Gilman) and imagined (Jo March, Marjorie Morningstar). My recent book, "Well-Read Lives" tells moving stories of how young women born in Victorian times lost--and found--themselves in books and worked out a life purpose around them. By discovering the meaning of reading to women in the past, today's readers can gain insight into their own lives. I taught at Trinity College for many years and live in West Hartford, Conn. with my Maine Coon cat, Sascha.

http://uncpress.unc.edu/books/T-8614....

Reviews

[Tatyana Naumova]

Очень скучно и очень познавательно

[Mya]

Nicely organized and well written. Sicherman draws from numerous experiences in order to create a larger picture of female readers in the Gilded Age, and does a good job tying together the cultural background of the subject and how it affected how and what they were reading/able to read.

[Alice]

This book is really a three and a half. It's full of fascinating information about the history of women's reading post civil war to the present. The chapters on Louisa May Alcott and Jewish immigrant women are especially wonderful. And the end note on changes in reading patterns today is provocative. Some of the chapters are well-written and almost sing. Others are weighted down with academic jargon i.e. 'gendered' used way too often - and while interesting seem like padding to make a complete book. I enjoyed reading about Hull House, for example, but felt it belonged in another book. The problem, in part, may be that some of the chapters were written for other venues and then republished in the book.

[Renee Liu]

These accomplished might come in different ways in terms of class or ethnicity, but they have one similarity that glues them together, which is an intense affinity with books. Books have always been the center of "every fabric of their lives". How it could be? It is so dangerous to live inside a book. But, for them, books are the only way to refashion themselves into a new being, books provide them not just escaping from reality but helping them understand their situation. They think books are real life. Their crave for books are unbelievably intense and irresistable. Nothing could block their way on this fiery road of bookish pursuing!!

[Herb]

This is a wonderfully well-researched and informative book about the place of reading, books & libraries in 19th-century America, specifically in the lives of American women, both native-born and foreign-born, and the results all received based on their statuses in life and those who overcame poverty and rose to achievement and those born to affluence and chose to use this passion for the betterment of others. This is definitely a scholarly tome, but is immensely readable and greatly interesting.

[Patrick]

Very informative, and thoroughly documented. I agree with the other reviewer who noted the use of fashionable academic terminology, but on balance that element is not too onerous compared with similar books (some of which I have abandoned early on because the jargon was out of control). Another negative is the way the author comes off as feeling superior to all her subjects because she is situated later than them in time - presentism, in short. But time takes its revenge on those who feel that way, because within 15 years their own books become “dated”.

[Amanda]

Excellent so far. I heard Barbara Sicherman give a talk about this book at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. My reading is going slowly now because I have so much to read for classes!

[Cecile]

I'm reading it for a discussion at the library; I don't know if I'm going to stick with it. It's okay.

[Jason]

Having just finished 'Triangle: The Fire That Changed America' I figured this would be a solid next choice.

[Anne]

I especially loved the insight into Louisa May Alcott and Little Women.

[Melissa]

finished just in time for book club, and it was a bit of a slog. some interesting ideas, but none of them felt very new.