Lighting the Way: Nine Women Who Changed Modern America - Softcover

Schiff, Karenna Gore

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1401360157 ISBN 13: 9781401360153

Publisher: Miramax, 2007

Synopsis

Karenna Gore Schiff's nationally bestselling narrative tells the fascinating stories of nine influential women, who each in her own way, tackled inequity and advocated change throughout the turbulent twentieth century.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett, who was born a slave and fought against lynching; Mother Jones, an Irish immigrant who organized coal miners and campaigned against child labor; Alice Hamilton, who pushed for regulation of industrial toxins; Frances Perkins, who developed key New Deal legislation; Virginia Durr, who fought the poll tax and segregation; Septima Clark, who helped to register black voters; Dolores Huerta, who organized farm workers; Dr. Helen Rodriguez-Trias, an activist for reproductive rights; and Gretchen Buchenholz, one of the nation's leading child advocates.

Gore Schiff delivers an intimate and accessible account of the nine trail-blazing women who deserve not only to be honored but to have their example serve as beacons.

About this title

About the Author

Karenna Gore Schiff has worked as a journalist, lawyer, and most recently, Director of Community Affairs for the Association to Benefit Children. The eldest daughter of Al and Tipper Gore, she lives in New York City with her husband and two children. This is her first book.

From Publishers Weekly

Schiff, who is most notably Al Gore's oldest daughter and a lawyer and journalist, has put together a collective biography of nine outstanding American women of the 20th century—some unjustly little known. The more celebrated are Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1862–1931), an African-American journalist who brought the horrors of lynching to public attention; Mother Jones (c. 1837–1930), an Irish immigrant and lifelong crusader for workers' rights; and Frances Perkins (1882–1965), the first woman Cabinet member, appointed by FDR. Schiff also illuminates less renowned but highly influential figures, including Alice Hamilton (1869–1970) a physician and pioneer in calling attention to the dangers of industrial poisons, and Septima Poinsette Clark (1898–1987), child of a former slave, who became a teacher and tireless advocate for racial equality. Several of the subjects are still alive, like Dolores Huerta, cofounder with César Chávez of the United Farm Workers, and Gretchen Buchenholz, who established the Association to Benefit Children. Schiff has done excellent research, and though her prose isn't especially stylish, she shows her heroines as fully rounded figures. She points out, for example, that Wells-Barnett's feud with the NAACP was counterproductive and that Mother Jones's opposition to women's suffrage limited her reach. (Feb. 8)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Miramax
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1401360157
• ISBN 13: 9781401360153
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 544