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Reading Between the Lines

Women Who Dared

This series is focused around four biographies that explore the lives of women who broke from convention to challenge American society to live up to its ideals of democracy and equality. Each session centers on a book selected by Mara Drogan, a graduate student in the History Department of the University of Albany, SUNY.

 

The series opens with a discussion of The Grimke Sisters from South Carolina: Pioneers for Women's Rights, Gerda Lerner's fascinating dual biography, which tells the story of two oft-forgotten sisters who rejected the southern plantation life for the abolition and women's rights movements..


 

This session focuses on Harriet Jacobs: A Life, Jean Fagan Yellin's beautifully written account of the most famous runaway slave woman of the 19th century.


 

A discussion of Fran Grace's Carry A. Nation: Retelling A Life, a biography of the "original barroom smasher," which highlihgts the role of religion, prohibition and the suffrage movement in the early 20th century West.


 

The series concludes with a conversation about Helen Keller: A Life, Dorothy Herrman's illuminating treatment of Keller's roles as a social and political commentator and as a passonate advocate for the disabled.