While this book is less than 150 pages, it packs in a lot of information about women missing from United States' history. The author says in her introduction that her primary purpose in writing such a book was not only to show readers where American women were located in the narrative of US history, but primarily to visually recreate aspects of the "every woman's" life. So, while this book is not written for a genealogical audience, it does provide information that may help researchers flesh out family histories. It could also provide clues about women's lives that may point researchers towards new investigative tracks that they might not have previously considered. However, the primary value of this text are the visuals; there are charts, graphs, maps, photos, and illustrations that truly allow readers "to see" where the women in American history were and where we are going. This book is also user friendly because of its clear organization and division by time periods.

Part I examines the lives, homes, and settlements of Native American women and immigrants from Europe and Africa up to 1800. Opdycke's emphasis in this chapter is on the "change and disruption" in women's lives such as the death of a child, removal from ancestral lands, settling new lands, or being sold to a new master. She first examines the lives of Native women by discussing their family relationships, pointing out the value of larger family networks, as compared to European and African women who left many family members behind. The rest of the chapter focuses on the challenges for immigrant women in colonizing and then building the young republic (all enhanced with details maps, charts, and illustrations). By placing women in the narrative we see that women truly were involved all along; for instance European women participated economically by refusing to drink tea from Great Britain and fund raising for soldiers. African women were also, according to Opdycke, the largest group in the slave population because they were less expensive to purchase; therefore, much of the slave labor during this time was performed by women. The chapter concludes with an interesting vignette about the life of midwife Martha Ballard. She kept a detailed diary of her work, which her posterity saved and protected, until Laurel Thatcher Ulrich wrote a book about it in 1991 (A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812, available on Amazon.com for $11.53). Opdycke includes a map illustrating how demanding Ballard's life was by illustrating her travels during a three-week period (see p. 31). This vignette clearly shows the importance of an everyday woman in the early republic and helps readers "see" what our ancestors did to shape the USA. (Note: there is also a PBS documentary that was made based on Ulrich's book.)

Part II discusses the expanding nation for the years 1800 – 1865. For Native American women it was more than just displacement and broken treaties with the US government; it was the destruction of their family networks. For European American women this time of westward geographic expansion was also a time of booming economic growth. It was also a time for increased efforts to abolish slavery and reform the nation. For African American women, it was a time of westward movements to plant and harvest cotton and sugar – and an end of autonomy in the task system of the Southern plantations. The nation was also growing apart as the urban centers in the north expanded and the southern reliance on agriculture blossomed. With the advent of the Civil War, women were again involved. In the north, women worked as camp laundresses, battlefield nurses, and factory workers. But in the south, not only did the women help with the war effort, but many had to perform all the work the men did previously. For instance, many white women on the plantations had to run everything, supervise their slaves, all while worrying about their male relatives fighting in the war and hoping that their land did not become the next site for a battle. This entire chapter includes maps, diagrams, and time lines to show how women's lives were drastically altered. The vignette of Angelina Grimké at the end illustrates such changes. She was a woman born to privilege, but grew disaffected from her life on the southern plantation and moved north. She soon joined the abolitionist cause and, along with her sister Sarah Grimké, was one of the most popular and controversial figures in their cultural moment. Interestingly, in 1868 both sisters found out that two students at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania were their brother's sons by a slave woman. And true to their abolitionist leanings, they chose to "welcome their nephews and help them as they build distinguished careers in law and theology" (p. 46).

Part III covers the years 1865 –1914 and Opdycke examines it as a period of reform facilitated by women. Different topics that the chapter addresses are reconstruction in the South and sharecropping. Work in many different aspects, education for women, the women's club movement, and immigration are also discussed. Diagrams, maps, and charts illustrate the points she makes. For instance, a map of southern states graphically illustrates the number of Freedmen's Bureaus and black colleges created in proportion to the black population of 1870. An accompanying illustration shows how many more women than men were teachers in the Freedmen's schools.

Another interesting section enumerates how many women helped settle the American Prairies at this time and shows how isolated their lives would have been by comparing the population density of 1 square mile in Poughkeepsie, New York (1899) with West Blanchard, North Dakota (1892) (see p. 58). Such graphics illustrate not only women's contributions to the settlement of the United States, but also give us a glimpse of their challenges. Other interesting points Opdycke makes are about the development of the suburb and the suburban and urban homes. As women's homes in the suburbs (single-family dwellings) became bigger the further away from the city, the homes of immigrant women in the urban tenements decreased in size. Often a family of 10-12 people would live in 2-3 rooms of a home that had once been a single-family dwelling (see p. 65). Even though such deprivation was difficult for immigrant women to live with, Opdycke points out that such living conditions were much better than what many of these women left behind in eastern European countries. Just seeing the size of homes they were forced to live in, often without running water, makes one appreciate what we have today.

Likewise, seeing the graphics that represent the kinds of work women participated in during this time, while raising a large family, shows how much women contributions helped build the nation. For instance, in 1900 the paid workforce was 20% female (the other 80% were involved with agriculture or homemaking), with 44% of those women single and 33% divorced or widowed. Of those 5 million working women, 40% worked in the service industry in private homes (as maids, cooks, or other domestic help), or in hotels, restaurants, hospitals, or laundries (p. 66). Opdycke points out that a large percentage of these service workers were African American women because they were restricted from any other industry besides agricultural work (p. 67). 25% of these working women held manufacturing jobs, while 15% held "trade and transport" jobs such as secretaries or clerks, and 16% were professionals, usually teachers. Opdycke compares these figures with statistics available in 1990 and shows the differences and surprising similarities in the work women do now that women make up half of the workforce. The remainder of the chapter discusses women's contributions to the organized labor unions, access to higher education, the Settlement House movement, the women's clubs movement, and the New Woman.

The chapter also contains a discussion on changing social norms governing women's lives by examining the novel, Sister Carrie, by Theodore Dreiser. It is a story of a young woman who leaves the farm for Chicago and becomes an actress. Opdycke's essay includes maps showing concentrations of working-women boarders in the eastern US. Such a map would be useful for genealogists wanting to see how their ancestors fit in with the trends of the time.

Part IV points out that while women made many gains in the years 1914 – 1965, there were also periods of reaction to and reduction of those gains brought on by "a succession of cataclysmic national and international events," namely World Wars I and II, the Great Depression, and the Cold War (p. 80). Since this time period is more familiar to many of us, it is useful to see how Opdycke places women in these unstable times. First, she illustrates women's political power by their work to pass Prohibition and women's suffrage (both went into effect in 1920). She also illustrates the role women played in both World Wars. This participation is presented using graphics such as a map of the globe and supporting tables, which show that during World War I American women were stationed all throughout the US and in the territories of Panama, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Midway Island, Guam, the Philippines, as well as in Europe. According to Opdycke, at least 22,000 women were serving in Europe during World War I (p. 85).

Women at home also participated by protesting against the war and by promoting isolationism. They took jobs that the men left vacant. And many women worked as volunteers to do such tasks as promote the sale of Liberty Bonds and food conservation. Times were equally tenuous for women during World War II when 400,000 women joined the military, making up 3% of the entire military. Women at home had similar struggles as in the previous war with food shortages and war-time homemaking. One group of women, Opdycke points out, had the greatest challenges – the Japanese American women who were forced from their West Coast homes into desolate internment camps. 110,000 Japanese Americans were forced to relocate and for nearly three years these women and their families had to suffer imprisonment based on their race. A diagram shows how small their living space was in an internment camp in Poston, California (p. 103). The living space for a family was 25' x 20' – a space similar to the tenement housing of big cities at the beginning of the century.

And while Rosie the Riveter is a familiar cultural icon of women's participation in the manufacturing work during WW II, what many might not know is that there was a mass migration for women, black and white, to get these jobs. Many black women left the rural south to go to urban centers on the east and west coasts. Married women joined the work force in record numbers. According to Opdycke, 20 million women had wartime jobs and nearly a third of those had never worked for wages before (p. 102).

After the war, women continued to promote social change and played a key role in the Civil Rights movement. Opdycke provides a time line of women's participation in the movement and lists 20 key events that women participated in from 1955-1965, beginning with Rosa Parks' refusal to give up her seat on a bus in 1955. This time line shows women who were protestors, administrators, and activists for Civil Rights. This valuable list would be very useful for family historians writing about women in this time period.

Part V looks at women's lives from 1965 to 2000 and covers history that most of us remember. From the social unrest of the 60s to issues such as women's wages, health, immigration, politics, and crime this chapter gives useful statistical information that would help women who are writing their own histories now and want to illustrate what their lives were like. For instance, I found it useful to see a national map depicting the social unrest of the 60s, especially in California, where my family moved to in 1970. It was also useful to see figures on women's participation in and response to the Vietnam war, which was such a prominent part of my childhood. This chapter is also the first to include statistics for the states of Hawaii and Alaska. And a final section includes statistics on women's lives in the following categories: population, life expectancy, infant mortality, maternal mortality, marriages and divorces, birthrate, female-headed families, births to unmarried women, labor force participation, working mothers, wage gap, degrees granted to women, voting records, women in the US Congress and state legislators. All these statistics give a quick summary of the roles and developments women have made in building this nation.

There is also a four-page list of books and sources for further reading. An index also makes the book easy to search, as does the Table of Contents.

In conclusion, even though "The Routledge Historical Atlas of Women in America" is a great little resource, it also has some weaknesses. For one, there is no information available for the states of Hawaii and Alaska before Part V which focuses on 1965 - 2000 (due likely to their induction into the Union in 1959). While Opdycke does attempt an even-handed discussion of all cultural groups, her history privileges women of European ancestry. She does mention Native and African American women, but their stories (when recorded) are always secondary to that of the dominant group. Likewise, there is little mention of women with Asian, Pacific Islander, and Hispanic ancestry. In spite of these omissions, if you can order a used copy online, find one in your public library, or even read the sections available on Google Books or Amazon.com, you may find it a useful, quick reference for your research on American women.

Article written by Larisa S. Asaeli