A Life in Motion

by Howe, Florence

• ISBN13: 9781558616974
• ISBN10: 1558616977
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-03-15
• Publisher: Feminist Pr

Summary

Florence Howe has led an audacious life: she created a freedom school during the civil rights movement, refused to bow to academic heavyweights who were opposed to sharing power with women, and founded a feminist publishing house at a time when books for and about women were few. Sustained by her relationships with iconic writers like Grace Paley, Tillie Olsen, and Marilyn French, she traveled the world as an emissary for women's empowerment. Howe's memoir spans her eighty years of personal struggle and professional triumphs. Florence Howewas first introduced to activisim during the civil rights era and helped establish women's studies programs across the country during the early years of the second wave of the feminist movement. In 1970 she founded the Feminist Press and was its publisher until 2006. She is professor emerita of English at the graduate center at the City University of New York, and holds many honors as well as six honorary doctorates, the most recent from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Author Biography

Florence Howe has led an audacious life: she created a freedom school during the dangerous days of the civil rights movement, refused to bow to academic heavyweights who were opposed to sharing power with women, and founded a feminist publishing house at a time when books for and about women were few. Sustained by her friendships with iconic writers like Grace Paley, Tillie Olsen, and Marilyn French, she traveled the world as an emissary for women's empowerment. Howe is a teacher and activist; she is the co-founder of the Feminist Press, a past president of the Modern Language Association, and a central organizer of the international women's movement.

Table of Contents

Prologue: Memory, History, and the Missing Creative Bone	p. 11
A Family Girl
Two Mothers	p. 23
Two Fathers	p. 41
Learning About Class at Home and in School	p. 54
The Care of the Future
Studying the Future-Hunter College and Smith College	p. 77
College Teaching: Learning to Be an Activist	p. 102
Marriages, Yes, All Four of Them	p. 134
Daddy, I Never Called You Father	p. 177
Another Kind of Mother-and Grandmother	p. 200
Work That Changed My Life
Becoming a Feminist	p. 229
Practicing Feminism at Home and Abroad	p. 249
Founding the Feminist Press	p. 279
Moving About the World for Women's Studies	p. 310
Growing Pains at the Feminist Press	p. 342
Moving into CUNY	p. 370
A Heroic Decade-the 1990s	p. 401
Retirement and Return	p. 437
Friendships into Family
My Mother, the Survivor	p. 465
Sustaining Friendships	p. 499
My New York Family of Choice	p. 534
Epilogue: Bellagio, the Creative Bone, Doris Lessing, and Homespace	p. 559
Acknowledgments	p. 568
Index	p. 573
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