Before They Could Vote: American Women's Autobiographical Writing, 1819-1919

Smith and Watson, professors at the University of Michigan and the Ohio State University respectively, have culled from a wide spectrum of American women's autobiographical writing of the 100 years between 1819-when ""An Authentic Statement of the Case and Conduct of Rose Butler, who was tried, convicted, and executed for the crime of arson"" was published-and 1919, the year before women were granted the vote. They include everything from the relatively well-known captivity narrative of Mary Jemison to an obscure 1912 piece titled ""Sui Sin Far, the Half Chinese Writer, Tells of Her Career."" In their introduction, Smith and Watson argue the authors used their writings as ""capital"" in which to negotiate the public and private worlds, in a ""pursuit of action and agency."" The selections, introduced by brief author biographies, bear that out, as in ""The Life and Religious Experience of Jarena Lee"" from 1836, in which a free African-American writes unabashedly of (as one section of her narrative is titled) ""My Call to Preach the Gospel."" There are 22 selections in all, including Zitkala-Sa (nee Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, born to a white father and Sioux mother), Eulalia Perez (who worked at the San Gabriel mission), and such well-known figures as Sojourner Truth, Margaret Fuller and Harriet Tubman. Intended for course use, the book offers a fine selection of diverse voices.