A gifted orator, Lucy Stone dedicated her life to the fight for equal rights. Among the earliest female graduates of the Oberlin Collegiate Institute in Ohio, Stone was the first Massachusetts-born woman to earn a college degree. Stone rose to national prominence as a well-respected public speaker – an occupation rarely pursued by women of the era.
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Lucy Stone, a nineteenth-century abolitionist and suffragist, became by the 1850s one of the most famous women in America. She was a brilliant orator, played a leading role in organizing and participating in national women’s rights conventions, served as president of the American Equal Rights Association [...]
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It has become a holiday tradition on the OUPblog to ask our favorite people about their favorite books. This year we asked authors to participate (OUP authors and non-OUP authors). For the next two weeks we will be posting their responses which reflect a wide variety of tastes and interests, in fiction, non-fiction and children’s books. Check back daily for new books to add to your 2010 reading lists. If that isn’t enough to keep you busy next year check out all the great books we have discovered during past holiday seasons: 2006, 2007, 2008 (US), and 2008 (UK).
Sally G. McMillen is the Mary Reynolds Babcock Professor of History and Department chair at Davidson College. Her newest book, Seneca Falls and the Origins of the Women’s Rights Movement illuminates a major turning point in American women’s history, a convention and its aftermath, which launched the women’s rights movement.
Selecting a favorite children’s book is nearly impossible since so many wonderful ones have been published. Thinking about books I loved to read to our children, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, Ferdinand the Bull, Amos and Boris, and Charlotte’s Web come immediately to mind. But in recalling my own childhood and how much I enjoyed curling up in a comfy chair and burying my head in a book, probably the one that I loved most was A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I must have read it a dozen times, and I still revisit it as an adult. Years ago, on our first trip to London, my husband and I stayed in a B & B whose third-story window looked out over the rooftops of the city. For a few minutes, I stood there transfixed and pretended that I was Sarah Crewe in her garret. Burnett’s old-fashioned story with its satisfying ending pleases a reader who is somewhat old-fashioned and incurably romantic.
What appeals most to me is the main character, Sarah Crewe. She personified the kind of girl I dreamed of becoming—selfless, kind, empathic, well-mannered, and smart. Brought from India to a London boarding school by her doting father, Sarah quickly adjusted to her new environment. The school’s headmistress, Miss Minchin, however, resented the accomplished and privileged Sarah. Girls started calling her “princess,” some in adoration but others in derision. When Sarah’s father died and lost his entire fortune, Sarah was left alone and destitute. Miss Minchin moved Sarah to the attic and forced her to work as a scullery maid.
Sarah’s ability to endure sudden loss and deprivation—cold, hunger, exhaustion, and brow-beating— inspired me. Becky, the scullery maid who resided in the garret ne
