Shady Ladies: Nineteen Surprising and Rebellious American Women by Suzann Ledbetter
Nineteen capsule biographies of women of the 18th and 19th centuries. The only one I’d heard about before was Margaret (”Molly”) Brown and that was from the play or whatever it was which, according to this, has no basis in reality. A couple of prospectors in California, Alaska and Colorado; a couple of savvy businesswomen, notably Lydia Pinkham of Lynn, Mass, whose cosmetics and restoratives are still made by Numark Laboratories; and photography pioneer Frances Benjamin Johnston.
The biographies are cursory (which is apparent considering there are 19 in only 241 pages), and the writing is often forced and pretentious. Still, the women are interesting at least as far as one can tell with what little is here. Ledbetter uses no primary sources, everything is secondary at best, and the language is couched as a result.
I suppose the women are “rebellious” since so many were divorced and a few of them are surprising. There’s not much here in the end, but it’s worth hearing about the people.
