The Political Work of Northern Women Writers and the Civil War, 1850-1872

“Engaging and impressively researched. . . . Valuable: it situates some familiar and unfamiliar authors in an illuminating historical context, and it identifies productive areas for further study.” — Journal of American History

“Sizer’s book is a thorough study of female assertions of political power through written discourse. Her account is expansive and complex.” — Journal of American Studies

“A thorough and nuanced exploration of these authors' wartime writing. It will be of interest to historians and literary critics alike.” — American Historical Review

“In this impressively researched and clearly written study, Sizer analyzes the ways in which northern women writers used their writing . . . to respond to and potentially affect the public understanding of the national crisis of the Civil War . . . . The chief strength of Sizer’s book is its detailed analysis of how one of the most cataclysmic events of American history affected the lives and careers of women writers as well as other American women.” — American Studies

“Sizer’s work will be of interest to those studying the northern intellectual response to antislavery reform; wartime politics; freedom and Reconstruction; race and class; and the late-nineteenth-century suffrage movement. This study also will prove useful to scholars of Sizer’s chosen authors, both for detailed perspectives on their wartime literary production and for background on their writing and activism.” — Journal of the Early Republic

“A far-reaching exploration of the social and political impact of women’s writings before, during, and after the Civil War. . . . The first monograph specifically addressing the political contribution of the era’s women writers.” — Library Journal

“A tremendously engaging study of Civil War era gender arrangements and political culture. Sizer renders the political cadences of women’s everyday lives with the same skill that she interprets individual literary texts. Here is a book that adds wonderful dimension to our understanding of the public sphere, civic life, allegiance, dissent, and war itself.” — Matthew Frye Jacobson, Yale University

"In examining the ways in which Northern women wrote about the Civil War,

“Lyde Sizer shows us how the war transformed women’s lives. Clearly and insightfully written, the book makes a strong contribution to the literature on the Civil War and helps fill a void on Northern women’s Civil War experience.” — Nina Silber, Boston University