American Women Activists and Autobiography

<p><em>American Women Activists and Autobiography</em> examines the feminist rhetorics that emerge in six very different activists’ autobiographies as they simultaneously tell the stories of unconventional women’s lives and manifest the authors’ arguments for social and political change as well as provide blueprints for creating tectonic shifts in American society.</p><p>Exploring self-narratives by six diverse women at the forefront of radical social change since 1900—Jane Addams Emma Goldman Dorothy Day Angela Davis Mary Crow Dog and Betty Friedan—the author offers a breadth of perspectives to current dialogues on motherhood essentialism race class and feminism and highlights the shifts in situated feminist rhetorics through the course of the last one hundred years.</p><p>This book is a timely instructional resource for all scholars and graduate students in rhetorical studies composition American literature women's studies feminist rhetorics and social justice.</p>