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| The Bulletin Dozen is a monthly theme-based list of titles available only on-line. Since we're awfully fond of bakers here at the Bulletin, we thought we'd adopt their philosophy of generosity and throw in an extra one or two when we have them to offer--so don't expect an even dozen. Please feel free to copy, download, or link to these lists. We ask only that you cite the source. See the archive for lists from previous months. | |
Thirteen Brave Women, And Then Some selected by Janice Del Negro |
In a nod of affection to Women's History Month (and Betsy Hearne's paean to women's history, Seven Brave Women), here is a list of biographies about women. The twelve single-persona biographies and one collective biography have been carefully culled from past Bulletins, and include the well-known, the little-known, and the ought-to-be known.
--Janice M. Del Negro, Editor
"Sally Hobart Alexander, author of photoessays My Mom Can't See Me and Mom's Best Friend, here turns to more straightforward autobiography, chronicling the advent of her blindness thirty years ago and its effects on her life. . . . There's plenty of inherent drama in the situtation, and Alexander's quick humor and vivid writing makes this an absorbing account of a young woman's dealing with an unexpected obstacle in her life." (BCCB 1/95)
"While Adams predates organized feminism, her famous letter to her young congressman still resonates: 'That your Sex are Naturally Tyrannical is a Truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender and endearing one of friend.' . . . Bober makes no effort to emancipate Adams from her times; this is a traditional, scrupulous account of a life in its domestic particulars as well as in its proximity to significant decisions and events." (BCCB 7/95)
"Forten's journals. . . . provide the basis for this biography of a well-to-do African American woman with personal and familial connections to the abolitionist movement and other liberal causes of her day. . . . Forten's enthusiasms and observations offer readers a look into the cultured, educated black community of the mid-nineteenth century." (BCCB 4/95)
"There's a fair amount of truth about 'Little Sureshot' laced in here among the whoppers, and half the fun for young listeners will be in reckonin' which is which. . . . In the best tradition of frontier hyperbole Dadey reminds her audience that it was Annie who shot those craters in the moon, reversed the flow of the Snake River, and blasted a star into Pike's Peak and the Hawaiian Islands. . . . Concluding notes, entitled 'The Truth,' are included to set the credulous straight." (BCCB 6/97)
"Through a vigorous and sympathetic discussion of the life of nineteenth-century women's-rights activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Fritz offers readers a glimpse of the close friendships, uneasy alliances, and tacit rivalries that fueled the early suffragist movement. . . . Steer those gloomy 'I gotta do a biography report' patrons to this title for a spirited and informative read." (BCCB 10/95)
African-American artist Michelle Wood tells the story of her artistic, internal and real life in a series of powerful paintings. This is a successful "collaborative effort between a painter depicting her subject and an 'interpreter' who tells the artist's story, connecting the pictures into a compelling sequence so that the text is not merely a a description of preexisting art but a force moving it foward." (BCCB 12/96)
"Writing to Fanny when she was sixteen, her father cautioned her of a future that would be different from that of her famous brother Felix: 'Music will perhaps become his profession, whilst for you it can and must only be an ornament.' Kamen's feminist theme can be clearly heard throughout this biography, but she wisely does not lean on it too heavily and avoids turning her early-nineteenth-century subject into a twentieth-century heroine." (BCCB 5/96)
"Knudson, the poet's close friend and literary executor, cover's Swenson's early years growing up in Utah amid a large Mormon family and her struggles to keep body and soul together after her move to New York during the Depression. The picture of May Swenson that emerges here--careful, sensitive, observant, resolute, and loyal to her friend--is, appropriately enough, drawn in large part from her own poetry, which appears throughout." (BCCB 12/93)
"Pavlova is the most famous figure in early twentieth-century classical ballet, and Levine paints a picture of the great ballerina's life, covering Pavlova's early years in Russia, her later settling in England, and then her extensive touring through Europe, the United States, South America, and Asia. . . . it's a good old-fashioned account of a glamorous life." (BCCB 5/95)
"Harriet Powers was born in slavery and lived in poverty, with few records of her life except her richly imaginative story quilts. In this brief artistic biography, Lyons openly surmises or fictionalizes where the bitter obscurity of slavery and poverty has resulted in an absence of records, but Harriet speaks eloquently through her handiwork depicting Bible stories and natural phenomena. . . . The colors of the quilts have faded, but their narrative power remains evident and fascinating; Lyons' lively writing stitches concepts together with smoothness and clarity." (BCCB 12/93)
"In simple language and generously sized print, the book covers Isadora's childhood and artistic beginnings in San Francisco; her moves with the 'clan Duncan' to New York, then London and Europe; her increasing fame, string of lovers, and personal tragedies; and her terpsichorean legacy." (BCCB 10/94)
Five photographers, two of them historically significant figures (Julia Margaret Cameron and Margaret Bourke-White) and three of them contemporary talents (Flor Garduno, Sandy Skoglund, and Lorna Simpson) are the focus of Focus,. Wolf describes each photographer's life and work, discussing each woman's cultural background (English, European American, African American, Mexican) and photographic vision, helped by a liberal representation of the subject's own work." (BCCB 11/94)
This page was last updated on March 2, 1998.