What Do Readers Want From the Lives of American Women?
Over the Decades, the Expectations of Female Biography Subjects Have Changed, but Not as Much as We Might Think
A hundred years ago, in March 1916, the first biography of Julia Ward Howe was published to general acclaim. Written by Howe’s three daughters, Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910 was the first major biography of an American woman, and set a high standard. In 1917, it received the first Pulitzer Prize for biography; not until 1986 would another biography of an American woman by a woman (Louise Bogan by Elizabeth Frank) win the award. Writing my own study of Howe’s life, in 2016, I’ve been struck by how the expectations for …
