Category: Women’s Studies

Lisa Materson: African American Women, the Great Migration, and the Obama Presidency

The political influence of black Chicago emerged decades before Obama announced his first candidacy for president, during the years of the Great Migration when tens of thousands of southern blacks relocated to northern cities. Continue Reading Lisa Materson: African American Women, the Great Migration, and the Obama Presidency

Laura Browder: Women’s Gun Culture in America

The image of the armed woman as white, suburban-looking, and thoroughly domesticated is but one aspect of women’s gun culture, and women’s relationship to guns, in the United States. Continue Reading Laura Browder: Women’s Gun Culture in America

Marc Stein: Five Myths about Roe v. Wade

On 22 January 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision in Roe v. Wade, the abortion rights case that culminated in one of the most controversial legal rulings in the country’s history. Forty years later, numerous myths continue to circulate about the contents and meanings of Roe. Here are five of the most significant. Continue Reading Marc Stein: Five Myths about Roe v. Wade

Join us on Twitter for a #FreetoBe40 event with Lori Rotskoff

It’s a Twitter event! This Wednesday, December 12, from 9-10 pm EST join @LoriRotskoff, @uncpressblog, and @MamaDramaNY for a Twitter celebration and discussion of the 40th anniversary of Free to Be…You and Me, the popular nonsexist children’s album/book/TV special that has helped shape the childhoods and parenting practices of generations. Continue Reading Join us on Twitter for a #FreetoBe40 event with Lori Rotskoff

Interview: Lori Rotskoff and Laura L. Lovett, editors of When We Were Free to Be

Lori Rotskoff and Laura L. Lovett, editors of When We Were Free to Be: Looking Back at a Children’s Classic and the Difference It Made discuss the legacy of Free to Be…You and Me after 40 years. Continue Reading Interview: Lori Rotskoff and Laura L. Lovett, editors of When We Were Free to Be

Fall sale wrap-up: new categories 50% off, sale ends soon!

Announcing our last four sale subjects, all at 50% off, with free shipping for orders over $75 for the next two weeks. Continue Reading Fall sale wrap-up: new categories 50% off, sale ends soon!

UNC Press Fall Sale: New categories

New Fall sale categories: business history and southern history. Throughout the fall, we’re offering 50% off selected titles in the disciplines listed below. Enter 01SALE12 at checkout. Spend $75.00 and the shipping is free. Continue Reading UNC Press Fall Sale: New categories

Anne M. Butler: Nuns and the Road to Academic Recognition

In nineteenth-century America, Catholic sisters, despite disapproval, increasingly pursued opportunities for higher education. They did so to satisfy their personal intellectual interests and to meet new requirements for certification by government agencies. Continue Reading Anne M. Butler: Nuns and the Road to Academic Recognition

The UNC Press fall sale is underway! Save up to 50% on select titles

Throughout the fall, we’re offering 50% off selected titles in the disciplines listed below. Enter 01SALE12 at checkout. Spend $75.00 and the shipping is free. Continue Reading The UNC Press fall sale is underway! Save up to 50% on select titles

Barbara Sicherman: It Happened in the Archives

Well-Read Lives evolved from my interest in women’s history and biography that my father did not live to witness. He would surely have had his doubts about the gender angle. But I like to think that my admiration for his literary interests informed my choice of subject, if not my approach to it. Continue Reading Barbara Sicherman: It Happened in the Archives

Excerpt: Creating Consumers, by Carolyn M. Goldstein

Like Marye Dahnke, dozens of home economists carved out spaces for themselves in the consumer products industries in the early 1920s. While home economists in business struggled to win legitimacy within the American Home Economics Association (AHEA), they also faced challenges convincing corporate executives and managers that their expertise was necessary to effective consumer-oriented production and marketing. Continue Reading Excerpt: Creating Consumers, by Carolyn M. Goldstein

Cynthia A. Kierner: Taking the Kid to Europe

Although she returned to Virginia and lived the vast bulk of her life as a plantation mistress in rural Albemarle County, as a widow she chose to spend most of her time in Boston or Washington, D.C. And she often recalled her time in Paris as “the brightest part” of her life. Continue Reading Cynthia A. Kierner: Taking the Kid to Europe

Interview: Cynthia Kierner on the Life of Martha Jefferson Randolph

The performance of domesticity is a major theme of my book and the main means by which Martha helped construct her father’s public image as a virtuous republican family man while he was alive. Martha visited Washington twice during Jefferson’s presidency. Her presence, and that of her children, helped Jefferson to present himself to the public as a family man at the very time when his political enemies were spreading the scandal about him and Sally Hemings. Continue Reading Interview: Cynthia Kierner on the Life of Martha Jefferson Randolph

90th Anniversary sale now includes biography and American studies books

Our 90th anniversary sale continues with new books added in biography and American studies. Save 50% and get free shipping on orders over $75. Sale continues on select books in Civil War, literature and literary studies, African American history, women’s studies, religious studies, and art, architecture, and craft. Continue Reading 90th Anniversary sale now includes biography and American studies books

Mary J. Henold: The Leadership Conference of Women Religious is the Scapegoat for Our Disobedience

I believe, at the root of this assault on the sisters’ autonomy, is a bewilderment and anger at the hierarchy’s loss of power over laywomen. Continue Reading Mary J. Henold: The Leadership Conference of Women Religious is the Scapegoat for Our Disobedience

New E-book Short: Women and the Politics of Sterilization

In this UNC Press e-book short, Johanna Schoen explains the legal construction of North Carolina’s sterilization program, which lasted far longer than similar programs in other states, and demonstrates through the stories of several women how the state was able to deny women who were poor, uneducated, African American, or “promiscuous” reproductive autonomy in multiple ways. Continue Reading New E-book Short: Women and the Politics of Sterilization

Sa’diyya Shaikh: Finding Voices of Dissent within Islamic Tradition

For Muslims committed to social justice and feminism it is vital to highlight and expand on voices of dissent to patriarchy that exist in the plethora that is Islamic tradition. Continue Reading Sa’diyya Shaikh: Finding Voices of Dissent within Islamic Tradition

Excerpt: Into the Pulpit, by Elizabeth H. Flowers

On August 9, 1964, Watts Street Baptist Church in Durham, North Carolina, ordained Addie Davis to the gospel ministry—the first ordination of a woman by a Southern Baptist church. It came well ahead of many mainstream Protestant bodies and only one year after the publication of The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. Continue Reading Excerpt: Into the Pulpit, by Elizabeth H. Flowers

Septima Clark Biography Now Available as Enhanced E-Book

The enhanced e-book features nearly 100 primary-source items, including photographs, documents, letters, newspaper clippings, and 60 audio excerpts from oral-history interviews with 15 individuals—including Clark herself—each embedded in the narrative where it will be most meaningful.. Continue Reading Septima Clark Biography Now Available as Enhanced E-Book