A shred of black lace. A broken hand mirror. A spidery strip of false eyelash. These are the fragments left to Irene Vilar, granddaughter of Lolita Lebrón, the revered political activist for Puerto Rican independence who in 1954 sprayed the U.S. House of Representatives with gunfire, wounding several congressmen, and served twenty-seven years in prison. In The Ladies' Gallery, Vilar revisits the legacy of her grandmother and that of her anguished mother, who leaped to her death from a speeding car when Vilar was eight. Eleven years after her mother's death, Vilar awakens in a psychiatric hospital after her own suicide attempt and begins to face the devastating inheritance of abandonment and suicide passed down from her grandmother and mother. The familial pattern of self-destruction flings open the doors to her national inheritance and the search for identity. Alternating between Vilar's notes from the ward and the unraveling of her family's secrets, this lyrical and powerful memoir of three generations of Puerto Rican women is urgent, impassioned, and unforgettable.

A gorgeous publication that reveals the historical importance of first ladies through portraiture. Each first lady has brought her own priorities and flair to the position that has never been officially defined. They have served as hostesses, trendsetters, activists, and political players. First Ladies of the United States features 84 portraits of the nation's first ladies, as varied in style and representation as the individual women they depict. From watercolors and oil paintings to engravings and photographs, this book celebrates the legacy of first ladies throughout history. First ladies are some of the most scrutinized public figures in the country, praised or criticized on everything from their fashion to their level of political involvement. There's no better way to explore their visibility and lasting impact than with First Ladies of the United States, which places remarkable portraits alongside an insightful essay and lively entries that illuminate the history of the women who have shaped the White House.

The idea of this women's magazine originated with Samuel Williams, a Cincinnati Methodist, who thought that Christian women needed a magazine less worldly than Godey's Lady's Book and Snowden's Lady's Companion. Written largely by ministers, this exceptionally well-printed little magazine contained well-written essays of a moral character, plenty of poetry, articles on historical and scientific matters, and book reviews. Among western writers were Alice Cary, who contributed over a hundred sketches and poems, her sister Phoebe Cary, Otway Curry, Moncure D. Conway, and Joshua R. Giddings; and New England contributors included Mrs. Lydia Sigourney, Hannah F. Gould, and Julia C.R Dorr. By 1851, each issue published a peice of music and two steel plates, usually landscapes or portraits. When Davis E. Clark took over the editorship in 1853, the magazine became brighter and attained a circulation of 40,000. Unlike his predecessors, Clark included fictional pieces and made the Repository a magazine for the whole family. After the war it began to decline and in 1876 was replaced by the National Repository. The Ladies' Repository was an excellent representative of the Methodist mind and heart. Its essays, sketches, and poems, its good steel engravings, and its moral tone gave it a charm all its own. -- Cf. American periodicals, 1741-1900.