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Library Journal Review
Battle (Great American Folklore, 1986) has collected vignettes and stories of women from all aspects and time periods of American life, from pre-Columbian Native Americans to Vietnam War nurses, from the average woman to the celebrated (e.g., Mahalia Jackson and Amelia Earhart). Battle allows the women to speak in their own words. Thus, we hear the fear in the voice of the woman who gave birth along the westward trail and the uneasy respect of a newspaper describing the hanging of "Cattle Kate." This superb collection is marred only by the lack of citations for the entries. Those wishing to read more or to check the veracity of what is published are left to their own devices. For public libraries.Julie Still, Rutgers Univ., Camden, N.J. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publishers Weekly Review
Battle wrote this volume to supplement her earlier work, Great American Folklore, which, she believes, did not "account for the female dimension of American folk life." The value of this text lies in the astonishing variety of experience lived by American women documented here. Utilizing excellent research skills, Battle draws on memoirs, letters, diaries, legend and historical portraits to tell compelling stories of women from all walks of life, encompassing wives and mothers, women on the frontier, women in wartime, lawbreakers, spiritualists and pioneers. Whenever possible, Battle allows her subjects to speak for themselves and, along with the famous words of Helen Keller and Sojourner Truth, she includes lesser-known writings, such as Anna Howard Shaw's account of moving to the frontier and an excerpt from Lydia Maria Child's Household Hints (1832). Battle has made a significant contribution to women's studies with this interesting collection. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
When Battle's daughter asked him why men "seemed to have all the fun" in his earlier work, Great American Folklore, he felt as if a light had been turned on. Why, he wondered, hadn't he come across stories of women, true American heroines, in his research? Dismayed and curious, Battle went back to work, and this time around managed to rescue a gratifying number of lively, inspiring, and sadly neglected stories of courageous and independent women pioneers, doctors, midwives, journalists, outlaws, teachers, artists, spiritual leaders, and activists, many of whom were also mothers and wives. Determined to go beyond the saccharine renditions of the lives of famous women, such as the much romanticized Pocahontas, or our oversimplified image of Molly Pitcher (whose real name was Mary Ludwig), Battle sought original sources and discovered a wealth of oral history, letters, diaries, and memoirs. Thus armed, he retells the stories of well-known women with great flair, but it is the unknown, unsung heroines, both noble and freewheeling, who capture the imagination most in this colorful pageant of champions. --Donna Seaman
