About the Author

Carol Berkin is Professor of History at the City University of New York Graduate Center. She is the author of A Brilliant Solution: Inventing the American Constitution, Women's Voices/Women's Lives: Documents in Early American History, and coeditor, with Mary Beth Norton, of Women of America: A History.

Reviews

"A revision, amplification, and synthesis of a rich succession of studies about every aspect of colonial society and culture. [Berkin] brings her subject down to earth . . . and shows sensitivity to the experiences of individual women . . . [First Generations] offers what Mary Beth Norton [author of Founding Mothers and Fathers] rightly calls 'the best available introduction to the lives of women in colonial and revolutionary America.'" --Edmund S. Morgan, The New York Review of Books

Berkin (history, Baruch Coll.) intends with this scholarly work to broaden our knowledge of women in Colonial America. Focusing not on famous women like Anne Hutchison but ordinary women from all walks of life, she examines some of the earliest settlers, including European and African American women. She discusses different geographic regions and offers excellent insight into everyday life and the role of women in the American Revolution. Along the way, Berkin explores immigration to the Colonies and the multiple roles played by women as "housewives" during the era. The final chapter is a bibliographical essay. In sum, this is a specialized, well-researched work that will appeal to collections in Colonial America and American studies.‘Dorothy Lilly, Grosse Pointe North H.S. Lib., Mich.