Breaking the Ties That Bind: Popular Stories of the New Woman, 1915-1930

During the 15 years represented here, American women's magazines published reams of fiction, much of it devoted to ongoing sagas of gutsy females demanding more from life than romance or domestic comfort. Honey ( Creating Rosie the Riveter: Class, Gender, and Propaganda During World War II ) has selected a well-told story from each year, and her choices (along with her informative introduction and notes) demonstrate the stylistic and topical range of their authors--all women except for Booth Tarkington, and few of them well known. Only Zona Gale's name still stirs recognition, although Honey notes that Sophie Kerr was ``immensely popular in her day,'' and cites several others--Edith Barnard Delano, Jenette Lee, Jessie Fauset, Eudora Ramsay Richardson--as prolific writers of stories and novels.) Blue-collar workers and doctors; pilots and artists; females old and young, white and black: here are women who resist being ``half smothered,'' as a character in Juliet Wilber Tompkins's ``Shelter'' tells an adoring suitor. ``I've just got out of my box,'' she adds, ``and you'd put me back in it, and feed me through a hole . . . .'' We get some of the lighthearted romance typical of commercial fiction then and now (some predictable last-minute insights, a few happily-ever-after endings) and many dated turns of phrase. But these authors' takes on sexual harassment, racism, and economic and social strife aren't dated--and neither is the hopeful energy that springs out of these pages. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Nov.)