This robust and well-researched tome provides insight into a range of women in the United States. I appreciated the opportunity to learn about so many influential women.

In Fearless Women, Elizabeth Cobbs successfully depicts the evolution and progression of feminist and women’s rights movements in the United States since the American Revolution in the late eighteenth century. Cobbs cleverly divides the book’s chapters into cohesive sections, with each chapter focusing on a set time period and two powerful historical women. Cobbs does not limit herself to the historical white women and provides examples of powerful women of color who embody the powerful and empowered women that she seeks to highlight. Cobbs tastefully handles some of the more sensitive subjects, particularly slavery, Jim Crow, and #MeToo, and her addressing of these topics accurately reflects the gendered situations and implications unique to women’s experiences throughout American history. The book is incredibly well-written and full of detail, and Cobbs is clearly familiar with and knowledgeable about the book’s subject. Cobbs references primary sources throughout the text, particularly letters and personal papers, autobiographies, and other official documents, and she brings the book through the modern day. While Cobbs could have chosen to focus on colonial America before the Revolution, her decision to focus on the American Revolution and onward makes sense given the limited access to relevant documents and the challenges of obtaining accurate historical information. Regardless, this book provides solid foundational information for American women’s history and American women’s rights movements.

Thank you netgalley for providing this arc.

I was initially annoyed there was a chapter on Phyllis Schlafly. I don't believe she belongs with all these feminists who moved our country forward. But the issues that she caused in feminism are important to the overall story of feminism in this country and the effects are still felt.

This book took me forever but wasnt as difficult to read as most nonfiction/history is for me.
I was so unaware of so much in here that I felt ashamed and am so glad I read it.

As both a political and historical book, this focuses on the journey women of America took to gain rights and outlines the process and key figures that paved the way. It’s structured clearly and chronologically, focusing on two prolific women in each section.

I loved this book, finding it both a mentally stimulating and comforting read, as I appreciated the balance between heavy political and legal movements and focusing on the social side of feminism and how women’s lives were lived as a result of the social structures restricting them. I loved the writing style and how it built such strong empathy and understanding for the people it focused on, and created powerful imagery of the journeys they may’ve endured physically, and mentally also.

As someone interested in sociology and history, feminism is something I both believe strongly in and something that has piqued my interest for a long time and this book provided me with an in-depth understanding of the process of feminism in America and the key figures that shaped this. It is thoroughly educational, and whilst using advanced language as a book of it’s kind does, I found it enjoyable and felt it is still accessible to appeal to a wide audience. It has taught me so much about new people I was unaware of but definitely should have been and I think a book of this kind is so important in society today. The links between the women were so satisfying to see click together and I found the system of focusing on two women at a time very effective as it provided a thorough understanding of the change maker as a person primarily and then as someone who made waves. It provided depth but also allowed focus to shift to gain a wider view of how everyone helped each other and it was a process building gradually. It was so informative in this way and provoked many questions that are key to understanding societal structures of the past and today and their significance.

It was such a brilliant read and genuinely couldn’t recommend enough. Thank you so much for the ARC.

This book is a comprehensive look at woman's history in the United States over 250 years. The book is readable and accessible to those who don't have an advanced degree in history. This makes it obtainable to the everyday person-exactly what you want in a book like this. At times, the dueling stories featured in each chapter were hard to keep straight, but I still managed to learn a lot that I didn't know before reading.

Elizabeth Cobbs, Fearless Women Feminist Patriots from Abigail Adams to Beyoncé, Harvard University Press, Belknap Press, March 2023.

Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me with this uncorrected proof for review.

Elizabeth Cobbs expands the way in which feminism is used to investigate women who call themselves feminists, and some who do not, worked to improve ‘their country’. This, as Cobbs acknowledges, is a broad definition, and one that I do not endorse, although I do acknowledge that society (and therefore country) would be improved if women’s lives were improved – the work that I think of feminists performing. However, rather than let the broadness of Cobb’s view limit the way in which this book is read, I found it an energising read, with a lot with which I could identify, some that left me questioning (Phyllis Schlafly a feminist?), engrossing stories of marvellous women, horrendous stories of the treatment of women and the beliefs that underlie such treatment, and a veritable wellspring of information. In short, Fearless Women is a worthwhile read, a contribution to debate about feminism, and a history of women’s endeavour.

Cobbs adopts an interesting approach – two women feature as the major figures in each chapter, each contributing to the theme of the chapter, usually in markedly different ways. The chapter headings provide useful information, ranging from the first, ‘The right to Learn’ featuring Abigail Adams and Abigail Bailey; through ‘The right to Speak’ with Angelina Grimke and Harriet Jacobs; to Frances Perkins and Ann Marie Riebe taking up ‘The Right to Earn’, and ending with Beyonce Knowles-Carter and the Women of Me Too providing a face to ‘The right to Physical Safety’. ‘The Right to Compete’ features Phyllis Schlafly and Muriel Siebert (the first woman to have a seat on the New York Stock Exchange). Familiar themes such as ‘The right to Lobby’, ‘The Right to Vote’ and ‘The right to Equal Treatment’ feature the following partnerships: Susan. B. Anthony and Elizabeth Packard; Mary Church Terrell and Rosa Cavallari; and Martha Cotera and Yvonne Swan. A prologue and epilogue, notes and illustrations, are valuable and complete the book.

Cobb explains her approach in the prologue, explaining the broadness of her choices in a book about feminism, feminists, activists on women’s behalf, and their own; her commitment to providing an account of women who made or tried to make the changes to improve women’s lives, and the impact on individual women; her reasons for her selection of particular women and causes; and providing a map of progress on the one hand, and the continuing fight for equality on the other.

Did I agree with everything Elizabeth Cobbs said? No, but that really does not matter. What I found was an engaging narrative that fully represented a range of ideas and women who have had an impact on women’s lives. I found a comprehensive account that made horrific reading at times, and an intensity to the stories of individuals that can only judge the women heroines. I found a book that is well worth reading, discussing and fulminating about while being so impressed with Cobbs’ inspiring way of drawing one into thinking deeply about the women’s movement, the causes women adopted, and the way in which their successes can be built upon.

It took me longer than normal to finish reading this book, it was finding the time to get engrossed without family interrupting me. The book is packed full of information and the reader may need time to unpack it all. I enjoyed the book and liked that each chapter contained information on a famous woman and an everyday woman. The diversity within the book was a nice bonus. It wasn’t just a rich white women’s viewpoint. For example, there is Phyllis Schlafly on one side and Beyonce on the other.

Overall, it is not very difficult book to read. I can see all or parts of this book being used in some history women's studies classes at both an undergraduate and graduate level. I plan to recommend that our academic library purchase a copy and I will also let our women's study historian know about the book.

An excellent addition to the range of books available to educate ourselves about the impact of women on our society. The author has structured a terrific set of case studies and enshrined them in an accessible account which offers insights into our society as much as into the lives of individual women.