In 1837, by virtue of dogged determination and never removing her sight from her goal, Lyon founded Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, the world's oldest continuing college for women. This volume draws together the major documents and writings of her remarkable career.

The biography of the woman who founded Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, helping to usher in a new era for women.

American women played in important part in Protestant foreign missionary work from its early days at the beginning of the nineteenth century, enabling them not only to disseminate religious principles but also to break into public life and create expanded opportunities for themselves and other women. No institution was more closely associated with women missionaries that Mount Holyoke College. This book examines Mount Holyoke founder Mary Lyon and the missionary women trained by her. Porterfield sees Lyon and her students as representative of dominant trends in American missionary thought before the Civil War. She focuses on how their activities in several parts of the world--particularly northwest Persia, Maharashtra in western India, and Natal in southeast Africa--and shows that while their primary goals remained elusive, antebellum missionary women made major contributions to cultural change and the development of new cultures.

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, this engaging, insightful portrayal of Emily Dickinson sheds new light on one of American literature’s most enigmatic figures. On August 3, 1845, young Emily Dickinson declared, “All things are ready” and with this resolute statement, her life as a poet began. Despite spending her days almost entirely “at home” (the occupation listed on her death certificate), Dickinson’s interior world was extraordinary. She loved passionately, was hesitant about publication, embraced seclusion, and created 1,789 poems that she tucked into a dresser drawer. In These Fevered Days, Martha Ackmann unravels the mysteries of Dickinson’s life through ten decisive episodes that distill her evolution as a poet. Ackmann follows Dickinson through her religious crisis while a student at Mount Holyoke, which prefigured her lifelong ambivalence toward organized religion and her deep, private spirituality. We see the poet through her exhilarating frenzy of composition, through which we come to understand her fiercely self-critical eye and her relationship with sister-in-law and first reader, Susan Dickinson. Contrary to her reputation as a recluse, Dickinson makes the startling decision to ask a famous editor for advice, writes anguished letters to an unidentified “Master,” and keeps up a lifelong friendship with writer Helen Hunt Jackson. At the peak of her literary productivity, she is seized with despair in confronting possible blindness. Utilizing thousands of archival letters and poems as well as never-before-seen photos, These Fevered Days constructs a remarkable map of Emily Dickinson’s inner life. Together, these ten days provide new insights into her wildly original poetry and render an “enjoyable and absorbing” (Scott Bradfield, Washington Post) portrait of American literature’s most enigmatic figure.

Doubles are good for lots of things—double scoops of ice cream, double features at the movies. But double vision is NOT a good kind of double. In fact, it can make kindergarten kind of hard. Ginny sees double chairs at reading circle and double words in her books. She knows that only half of what she sees is real, but which half? The solution to her problem is wondrously simple: an eye patch! Ginny becomes the pirate of kindergarten.With the help of her pirate patch, Ginny can read, run, and even snip her scissors with double the speed! Vibrant illustrations from Lynne Avril capture the realities of what Ginny sees both before and after.

Based on the true story of Harriet Ann Jacobs, Letters from a Slave Girl reveals in poignant detail what thousands of African American women had to endure not long ago, sure to enlighten, anger, and never be forgotten. Harriet Jacobs was born into slavery; it's the only life she has ever known. Now, with the death of her mistress, there is a chance she will be given her freedom, and for the first time Harriet feels hopeful. But hoping can be dangerous, because disappointment is devastating. Harriet has one last hope, though: escape to the North. And as she faces numerous ordeals, this hope gives her the strength she needs to survive.

Great-Grandmother Mary Lyons, Ojibwe Elder from Minnesota, is a spiritual advisor, storyteller and wisdom keeper. She travels and teaches internationally with the Indigenous Grandmothers of the Sacred We. She is the founder of the Minnesota Coalition on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, an Indian Child Welfare Act Expert Witness and a Native American Family and Child Advocate. She was a keynote speaker at the Parliament of World Religions in Utah and at the People's Climate March in New York City in 2014. She is a winner of the Congressional Angels in Adoption Award, nominated by Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota. She currently serves as a 4-Core Grandmother Council member for the women's sobriety group Women of Wellbriety International, which she co-founded. Grandmother Mary was one of many Native children removed from her home and placed in an institution; she has first-hand experience the negative effects on children and families of alcohol and drug addiction. After her own recovery, guided by her ancestors, she has dedicated her life to helping others, including fostering and adopting many children with family difficulties, disabilities and fetal alcohol syndrome.

An important new look at how gender, religion, pedagogy, and geography help shape women's scientific work.