Mistress of Herself

Foreword by Ellen Carol Dubois. Introduction by Paula Doress-Worters.

“Bravo to Paula Doress-Worters and The Feminist Press for bringing Ernestine Rose’s letters and speeches to all of us. Though Rose died over a hundred years ago, her words still thrill and inspire us. Doress-Worters’ carefully researched introduction and explanatory notes provide a rich cultural context for understanding this remarkable woman."

—Carol Kolmerten, author of The American Life of Ernestine L. Rose

"[Mistress of Herself] is addressed chiefly to scholars and is recommended primarily for academic libraries, though public libraries with a special focus on women's studies may also consider."

—Library Journal

“Through a masterful interspersal of historical background with the words of this courageous woman, Paula Doress-Worters brings us a fascinating story of the earliest suffragists whose efforts ultimately led to winning the vote for women in 1920. Mistress of Herself is a must-read for every woman, and an absolute necessity for every high school and college library. It is a real gem.”

—Kappie Spencer, Founder/Director of the National Gender Balance Project

"This collection of [Rose's] work adds a new dimension to and complicates women’s rights history, for unlike the majority of Protestant New England abolitionist and suffrage leaders Ernestine Susmund Potowski Rose was a socialist, Jewish, atheist, Polish immigrant."

—Rosalyn Baxandall, Distinguished Professor and Chair, American Studies/Media and Communications, State University of New York at Old Westbury

"Wonderful. . . . This fine collection restores [Rose's] arguments . . . expanding our view of the past and inspiring dreams of the future. Important for scholars, activists, and progressives generally."

—Bonnie S. Anderson, professor emerita of history, Brooklyn College and The Graduate Center, The City University of New York

"This volume is an invaluable resource for historians and those who are looking to do research . . . readers of all sorts can enjoy and learn from the life and works of Ernestine L. Rose."

—Forward.com

“Rose’s words speak largely for her, providing for the first time virtually a complete record of Rose’s public life. . . . [O]nce we insist on Rose’s proper place among the leaders of American feminism’s first generation, our sense of who and what fueled the earliest phases of that movement must be considerably enlarged.”

—Ellen Carol DuBois, from the Introduction

"Rose's matrix of influences and commitments made her not only a prominent figure, but also a unique window into the nineteenth-century U.S.. This volume promises to give her work some of the attention it deserves. . . .Highly Recommended."

—Choice Magazine

"Because Mistress of Herself is mainly a collection of primary sources, this volume is an invaluable resource for historians and those who are looking to do research. But because Doress-Worters' introduction provides so much information, not only about Rose's life but also about the larger historical context regarding how socialism, abolitionism and the spread of democracy in the United States helped spawn the first wave of the feminist movement, readers of all sorts can enjoy and learn from the life and words of Ernestine L. Rose."

—Forward Magazine