Synopses & Reviews
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 Howe was 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.
Review
"A Life in Motion is the inside story of the birth of women’s studies as a discipline, the rise of an international feminist movement, and the role of women in publishing and education. A sharp and compelling memoir.” Rosemary G. Feal, executive director of the Modern Language Association
Review
"If words speak truth we have it here in Florence Howe's long awaited memoir. Out of the pain of childhood, the deprivation, the want, comes the story of a woman's endurance, the voice of a self searching out worlds in which to be, a tale told with startling honesty by one of the founding figures of the US feminist movement, giving us the treasures of a history that might otherwise have been lost." Meena Alexander, author of Fault Lines
Review
"In this bold and courageous memoir Florence Howe transports us across class, gender, race divides — in and out of love, deprivation, and tragedy — along her activist journey toward profoundly creative work, and the abiding love of generations of chosen family. Everyone concerned about global feminism, women’s contributions, and humanity’s future will be enhanced and enchanted by A Life in Motion." Blanche Wiesen Cook, author of Eleanor Roosevelt: Volume I &Volume II
Review
"When she was a young instructor at Goucher College, Florence Howe was one day angered by an 'unenlightened' review of a satirical book by William Burroughs in The New Republic, and she fired off a scathing letter to the editor. At the New Yorker, the iconic Mr. Shawn read it and called, insisting that she come into Manhattan; then, he pretty much begged her to write whatever she liked for him. But Howe blew the gold-plated opportunity by penning work so analytic and un-New Yorker-ish that, as she should have known, it could never run. And so died the brilliant writing career of a woman who would instead become one of America's most staunchly independent feminist editors and publishers." Deirdre English, Ms. Magazine (Read the entire )
Synopsis
"A sharp and compelling memoir" of a feminist icon who forged positive change for herself, for women everywhere, and for the world (Rosemary G. Feal, executive director of the Modern Language Association).
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, established women's studies programs across the country during the early years of the second wave of the feminist movement, and founded a feminist publishing house at a time when books for and about women were a rarity.
Sustained by her relationships with iconic writers like Grace Paley, Tillie Olsen, and Marilyn French, Howe traveled the world as an emissary for women's empowerment, never ceasing in her personal struggle for parity and absolute freedom for all women.
Howe's "long-awaited memoir" spans her ninety years of personal struggle and professional triumphs in "a tale told with startling honesty by one of the founding figures of the US feminist movement, giving us the treasures of a history that might otherwise have been lost" (Meena Alexander, author of Fault Lines).
Synopsis
Founder of the Feminist Press tells her life story as an activist, scholar, and publisher.
About the Author
Florence Howe co-founded The Feminist Press in 1970. She became closely involved with the women's movement after her participation in the civil rights and anti-war movements in the 1960s. A founding mother of the women's studies movement during the 1970s and 1980s, she served as a professor of English at Goucher College and the College at Old Westbury,SUNY.