Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Feminist as Thinker

More than one hundred years after her death, Elizabeth Cady Stanton still standsalong with her close friend Susan B. Anthonyas the major icon of the struggle for womens suffrage. In spite of this celebrity, Stantons intellectual contributions have been largely overshadowed by the focus on her political activities, and she is yet to be recognized as one of the major thinkers of the nineteenth century. Here, at long last, is a single volume exploring and presenting Stantons thoughtful, original, lifelong inquiries into the nature, origins, range, and solutions of womens subordination. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Feminist as Thinker reintroduces, contextualizes, and critiques Stantons numerous contributions to modern thought. It juxtaposes a selection of Stantons own writings, many of them previously unavailable, with eight original essays by prominent historians and social theorists interrogating Stantons views on such pressing social issues as religion, marriage, race, the self and community, and her place among leading nineteenth century feminist thinkers. Taken together, these essays and documents reveal the different facets, enduring insights, and fascinating contradictions of the work of one of the great thinkers of the feminist tradition. Contributors: Barbara Caine, Richard Cndida Smith, Ellen Carol DuBois, Ann D. Gordon, Vivian Gornick, Kathi Kern, Michele Mitchell, and Christine Stansell.