Fearless Women

“Unflinching… Delivering a timeless message of equality, Fearless Women is wide-ranging in its biographical surveys of the women who shaped the US’s struggle for women’s rights since her founding.”—Foreword Reviews

“The right to compete, learn, lobby, vote, earn equal pay, obtain equal legal protection, and be assured of physical safety are among the issues the author examines through the lives of her brave protagonists. A fresh, well-researched perspective on women’s history.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Cobbs’s novelistic skills shine as she dramatizes policy debates and draws on personal memoirs and other sources to bring each woman to life… Feminists will savor the depth and intimacy of this optimistic survey.”—Publishers Weekly

“In the skillful hands of Elizabeth Cobbs, intrepid women of diverse backgrounds come alive on the page as they struggle to defend their own honor, care for their families, and fight for equality, autonomy, and dignity in a nation that has long denied them. Fearless Women is a gripping panoramic history that pairs ingenious excavation with enlightening explanation to relight the fire of feminist political identity at the very moment when we need it most.”—Tiya Miles, author of All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake

“Feminism has given Americans a common language, Elizabeth Cobbs argues in this brilliant and inspiring book, making her case through sixteen paired biographies of diverse, carefully selected female subjects, both well-known (Mary Church Terrell, Frances Perkins, Phyllis Schlafly) and unknown (Abigail Bailey, Ann Marie Riebe, Yvonne Swan). A remarkable and gripping achievement.”—Mary Beth Norton, author of Liberty’s Daughters

“What a great read! In unfailingly crackling prose, Cobbs freshly retells some familiar stories and colorfully excavates many new ones. Rich, consistently compelling, and often moving in detail, Fearless Women brilliantly illuminates women’s long struggle for equality in America, while making a robust case for the centrality of that struggle in the master narrative of American history. A magnificent achievement.”—David M. Kennedy, author of Freedom from Fear