Pre-Owned We the Women: Career Firsts of Nineteenth-Century America (Paperback) 0803292236 9780803292239

Victoria Woodhull is remembered as the first woman to run for the presidency of the United States--in 1872--and as an advocate of a single standard of morality for both sexes. We the Women describes a side of Woodhull less well known: the first woman stockbroker in America, she was successful on Wall Street while lambasting in her journal the railroads, insurance companies, and other special-interest groups. Stern offers biographical sketches of Belva Ann Lockwood, who fought for the right to practice law before the Supreme Court; Isabel C. Barrows, the first woman stenographer in the State Department; Rebecca Pennell Dean, criticized for not "knowing her place" when she joined a college faculty; Ellen H. Richards, the first university-trained chemist and a relentless worker for public health; Lucy Hobbs Taylor, who led women into the field of dentistry; Sarah G. Bagley, the first woman telegrapher; Rebecca Lukens, a premier captain of industry whose vision helped shape America's iron age; Mary Ann Lee, the ballerina who introduced Americans to revolutionary dances from abroad; Ann S. Stephen, the author of the first Beadle Dime Novel; Candace Wheeler, who brought women into the profession of home interior decoration; and Harriet Irwin, Louise Bethune, and Sophia G. Hayden, who paved the way for women to become professional architects. These nineteenth-century American women were the first to succeed in professions previously open only to men. Madeleine B. Stern has restored them richly to life in We the Women . The determination and intelligence of these women won for women a place in the arts, science and technology, education and the law, and business and industry. Among Stern's other books are Louisa May Alcott and The Life of Margaret Fuller .