Speaking While Female: 75 Extraordinary Speeches by American Women

The first anthology to put a spotlight on American women speakers from 1637 to the present and explain how each contributed to the making of the nation.Women have not been silent in US history, but you’d hardly know it from the history books. Speaking While Female challenges long-held notions by showing that in every period, at every historic juncture, women have contributed decisively to American ideals, institutions, and culture by stepping up and delivering powerful speeches, sermons, lectures, and testimony. Even when denied access to education, excluded from political life and the professions, and forbidden to speak from the pulpit, women have still found ways to come forward and use their public voices.This monumental collection assembles speeches by 75 American women, some whose names are recognized and others who are barely known. Some of the speeches in this collection have never been published; others not in more than a century. Arranged chronologically, from the Puritan era to the present, they demonstrate the crucial role women have played in the nation’s long struggle to live up to its ideals. To know American history, we must hear these women speak.Speaking While Female presents an entirely new lens through which to view our country’s history, and asks the question: Whose voices should define who we are? Read more