Women in the United States, 1830-1945 investigates women's economic, social, political and cultural history, encompassing all ethnic and racial groups and religions. It provides a general introduction to the history of women in industrializing America. Both a history of women and a history of the United States, its chronology is shaped by economic stages and political events. Although there were vast changes in all aspects of women's lives, gender (the social roles imputed to the sexes) continued to define women's (and men's) lives as much in 1945 as it had in 1830.

This book studies male activists in American feminism from the 1830s to the late 19th century, using archival work on personal papers as well as public sources to demonstrate their diverse and often contradictory advocacy of women's rights, as important but also cumbersome allies. Focussing mainly on nine men--William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, James Mott, Frederick Douglass, Henry B. Blackwell, Stephen S. Foster, Henry Ward Beecher, Robert Purvis, and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, the book demonstrates how their interactions influenced debates within and outside the movement, marriages and friendships as well as the evolution of (self-)definitions of masculinity throughout the 19th century. Re-evaluating the historical evolution of feminisms as movements for and by women, as well as the meanings of identity politics before and after the Civil War, this is a crucial text for the history of both American feminisms and American politics and society. This is an important scholarly intervention that would be of interest to scholars in the fields of gender history, women's history, gender studies and modern American history.

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Geller and Harris's accompanying history of both societal and psychiatric standards for women reveals that often even the prevailing conventions reinforced the perception that these women were "mad.".

Throughout American history, women's roles have been a source of controversy. Despite having to struggle to be heard or listened to, women vigorously participated in the political debates and cultural lives of American society. They responded actively to the social problems of their day, joining anti-slavery and temperance groups in the nineteenth century, only to discover that gender hindered their right to speak or act in public. Such limitations led to the women's rights movement and a long struggle for the vote and full citizenship rights.