Books
PAULA DORESS-WORTERS, editor of Mistress of Herself: Speeches and Letters of Ernestine Rose, Early Women's Rights Leader, is also the founding co-author of Our Bodies Ourselves, has long been active in the women's health movement and other movements for progressive social change. Reflecting upon her experiences in early second wave feminism, Doress-Worters began researching the history of women's political activism. While teaching a course on U.S. women's history, she discovered Ernestine L. Rose (1810-1892), a visionary early leader of the nineteenth century women's rights movement. Doress-Worters identified with Rose because of their shared Polish-Jewish heritage, and their early activism in nascent social movements. Appointed a scholar at the Women's Studies Research Center of Brandeis University, Doress-Worters founded the Ernestine Rose Society to preserve Rose's legacy as a feminist, freethinker, and abolitionist. On August 4 2002, the 110th anniversary of Rose's death, a delegation of U.S. and British scholars led by Doress-Worters and her late husband Allen J. Worters, dedicated a restored marker at the burial site of Ernestine and William Rose at Highgate Cemetery in London. Furthering her mission of restoring Rose's legacy, Doress-Worters collected, edited, and introduced Rose's speeches and letters, published as Mistress of Herself: The Speeches and Letters of Ernestine L. Rose, Early Women's Rights Leader (Feminist Press at CUNY, 2008.)
