Resulting from a 2018 panel held for the American Anthropological Association, this collection presents seven case studies from different geographical loci spanning five continents. The editors and contributors (trained as cultural anthropologists or archaeologists) have gleaned information from public domains to shed light on the private lives of women who lived or worked in diverse settings (homes, factories, plantations, or markets). The authors employ methods primarily from ethnohistory (and sometimes ethnology and archaeology) to assess such sources as public records, personal journals, correspondence, public performances, material culture, and the built environment, extracting information about the blurred dichotomy of public/private lives. Although the women subjects came from varied backgrounds (including enslaved persons, textile mill workers, tea processors, and British colonialists in South Asia), by focusing on the concept of agency, these studies document the private/public connections across colonial and capitalist contexts, such as the slave trade diaspora and cultural/ethnic heritages. Exposing elitism, sexism, racism, and inequality, the contributions illustrate how friendships and marriages transcendedethnic, class, economic, and religious boundaries. These thoughtful essays inform readers about potentially flawed assumptions of a presumed public/private divide and the relationships between personal and civic ideologies. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty; professionals.
