A Day at a Time: The Diary Literature of American Women Writers from 1764 to the Present

by Margo Culley (Editor)

Overview

This richly textured portrait of American women reveals the remarkable strengths and resources of ordinary women. Excerpts from twenty-nine diaries include miniatures of the daily life of New England families in the late 1700s, overviews of the great expansion westward, and devastating portraits of the brutal politics of the 1960s and 1970s. The book also contains a bibliography of hundreds of women’s diaries.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780935312515
Publisher:	Feminist Press at CUNY, The
Publication date:	01/01/1993
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

Editorial Reviews

"This anthology paints a richly textured portrait of the lives of average women [that's] . . . as moving and engrossing as almost any novel."
— People

" A Day at a Time is a tantalizingly wonderful book, wonderful because the spectrum of women's lives it gives us from the eighteenth century on is so rich, various, and deeply moving; tantalizing because it is a sampler and the reader longs to know more. What dazzling material is here! How it makes one dream and in that waking dream think with awe of the wisdom and skill with which these women came to terms with their lives by recounting something of the triumph and struggle as it was experienced day by day. The book is a revelation. It cannot be laid aside while reading; it cannot be forgotten once it has been read. These women will live, and will live forever."
— May Sarton

"A valuable reference work. . . . In A Day at a Time we hear a broad range of voices."
— The New York Times Book Review

"A creative work of art."
— Women's Studies Review

"In the classroom or in the livingroom, this is a book to be savored."
— Annette Kolodny, author of The Land Before Her and The Lay of the Land

From the Publisher

Despite editor's comments that unnecessarily nudge the reader toward obvious and broad conclusions, these excerpts from diaries composed over the past two centuries by 29 American women are a delightful treasure trove for those interested in the variety of women's experiences in the United States. Here are people from different classes, social levels, ethnic backgrounds. One woman describes her trip West to Oregon, at one point ``over the worst road that was ever made.'' A Victorian woman tells of her stormy courtships``I believe I am too glad and happy to be alive!'' Eslanda Goode Robeson, wife of Paul Robeson, writes of a bigot encountered during a trip through colonial Africa: ``Why am I sorry for this pitiful `superior' European?'' An 18th century woman recalls her husband's incest with their daughter: ``But as to my living with him in the most endearing relation any longer, after such horrid crimes, I did not see that I could, or ought to do it!'' A rich, eloquent collection. December

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In these diary excerpts real women, notable not for succeeding but for surviving, tell of their struggles to cope with infant death, sickness, old age, incest, and murder. On a railroad train fleeing the Yankees in the Civil War South, on a whaling ship in 1871, these women reveal their private lives or their personal connections with the public world. The diversity of their circumstances only highlights the universality of their experience. Culley's introduction offers good advice not only on how to read diaries, but on how to apply literary and historical analysis to them. Though some excerpts are too brief, most are available in published (though often out of print) works. The bibliography is extremely thorough. Teachers of history, literature, and sociology, feminists, and anyone who enjoys firsthand accounts will want this excellent collection. Highly recommended. Mary Drake McFeely, Smith Coll. Lib., Northampton, Mass.

Library Journal