America’s Founding Women

By: Cassandra A. Good, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Cassandra A. Good

Many of us are intimately familiar with the stories of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America; we know their names, and we revere their contributions to history. Women, on the other hand, have often been discussed on the peripheries of sweeping historical narratives, including the era of the American Revolution and the early decades of the nation’s founding. But the work of gender historians over the past 50 years has brought the stories of women out of the shadows and into the light. As you will see through the women that you will meet in this course - including Elizabeth Oliver Watson, Abigail Adams, Nancy Ward, Dolley Madison, Elizabeth Freeman, and many others - they were actually at the very center of the major events of early American history.

In the 10 lessons of America’s Founding Women, you will uncover the very real stories of the women who helped shape the United States as it underwent its transformation from a British colony to a fledgling nation. Professor Cassandra Good will help you understand what life was like for women during the American Revolution, and beyond, and how these women balanced the rigid social expectations of the late 18th and early 19th centuries with their own talents and desires. You will examine the ways they used the power that was granted to them in the home and in their communities and how they forged their own paths in opposition to the limitations imposed on them.

As you study the lives and contributions of these influential women, you will trace the gains and losses toward acquiring women’s rights that they experienced in the early decades of US history. You will better understand how these complex and remarkable women played a vital role in the creation of a nation.

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This should of had visuals.

This an very interesting listen. As someone that took a women history class in college it is interesting to learn things that were not cover or cover differently. What I did not like is that she makes references to thing like a painting in the first "lecture" just assuming everyone knows that painting. This is why I believe is should have visuals.

Boring, hard to listen to

Interesting story, terrible narrator. This is a book to read rather than listen to, hard to follow and keep concentration with the monotone voice and frequent pauses between sentences

Powerful women

Cassandra takes the reader where we haven’t been before. Of course I’d heard of Martha Washington, but likely just in a support role for her husband. I’m ashamed I had never looked deeper into these amazing women and their contribution to American society.

Must Listen

Will listen again. Such important history that is hardly known. The more you understand, the less you can be manipulated in today's political world.

Interesting Women's History

This book had a lot of interesting historical information, and it is fairly well written. I was listening to Women's History for a month, and was happy to find this. There was a plethora of information which was organized well. Parts of it were better than others. thus the four stars. The author read it, and they are lectures, but parts were weak and felt rushed. Otherwise she did a more than acceptable job. I think that a class taught by her would be even better than listening to these lectures in a vacuum.

If you are at all interested in the early history of women in this country then I would recommend this book. To me, one of the most interesting aspects was how instrumental women were in the boycotts of British goods in the years leading up the American Revolutionary War. I was recently looking at a book of early American crafts that talks about women making and decorating fabric.