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Breaking Down the Barriers: Three Women Who Led Public Lives Charles Capper. Margaret Fuller: An American Romantic, The Private Years. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. xv + 423 pp.; Ul. ISBN 0-19-504579-3. Ingrid Winther Scobie. Center Stage: Helen Gahagan Douglas, A Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. xx + 369 pp.; ill. ISBN 0-19506896 -3. Susan Ware. Sf ill Missing: Amelia Earhart and the Search for Modern Feminism. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1993. 304 pp.; ill. ISBN 0-393-03551-4; $22.00. Winifred D. Wandersee The American reading pubhc has always been fascinated with biography , as the popularity of works by writers Barbara W. Tuchman, David McCuUough, and Joseph P. Lash has indicated. Indeed, it is fair to say that probably most Americans have gained their knowledge of history (beyond high school) through the reading of that particular genre. Leon Edel, the biographer of Henry James, has pointed out what every historian takes for granted: "No lives are led outside history or society; they take place in human time. No biography is complete unless it reveals the individual within history, within an ethos and a social complex."1 It is surprising then that so few professionally trained historians have written biographies that have reached even the intelligent reading pubhc, let alone a more popular mass audience. This may be because many professional historians do not see biography as true history, although that attitude has been changing. The past decade or two has seen a renewed interest in biography among historians, as reflected in the work of Peter Gay on Freud, Stephen Ambrose on Eisenhower and Nixon, Blanche Wiesen Cook on Eisenhower and Eleanor Roosevelt, and Stephen Fraser on Sidney HiUman. The fields of women's history and women's studies have contributed to this new enthusiasm, and in fact, nearly two hundred biographies of women have been written since 1970.2 This development has meant the reinterpretation of the hves of already weU-known women from a feminist perspective, whüe concomitantly leading to the study of other lesser known women. But whether it wiU have an impact on readers beyond academics is another matter, for it remains true that in spite of increased interest in cultural and racial diversity and sympathy for the © 1994 Journal of Women's History, Vol. 6 No. 3 (Fall) 1994 Book Revtew: Winifred D. Wandersee 141 underdog, academics—yes, even feminists, or perhaps, especiaUy feminists —are primarily writing for and to each other. Susan Ware's interpretative study of the life of Amelia Earhart, Sti'ZZ Missing: Amelia Earhart and the Search for Modern Feminism, seems to be a conscious attempt to move beyond an academic readership by placing Earhart, the aviator, in the context of the popular culture of the 1930s, and by using a format and a writing style that is definitely accessible to a wider audience. Ware argues that Earharf s exploits in aviation, and in particular her 1928 flight across the Atlantic, established her fame as a popular icon of the thirties. She stood in the pubhc eye along with other high-powered, highly visible women, such as the tennis player Helen WiUs, the movie stars Katherine Hepburn and Mae West, the journalist Dorothy Thompson , the photographer Margaret Bourke-White, and, the most popular of them aU, Eleanor Roosevelt. Ware devotes an entire chapter to a description and discussion of these and other popular heroines of the era, arguing that they "served as role models and examples of what women could accomphsh in the modern world" (p. 175). She also describes the photographic presentation of Earhart, one that was encouraged by Earharf s own interest in photography and, therefore, her "unerring instinct for making a physical statement of who and what she was" (p. 145). Likewise, Earhart often starred in the newsreels — a powerful and innovative art form that gave moviegoers an enormous amount of information about the world beyond their own circumscribed lives. Ware points out that "Amelia Earhart was made for the newsreels. Photogenic, pioneering, and considerate of reporters, she was eminently newsworthy, especially when she had just completed a record-breaking flight' (p. 148). Thus, Ware successfully recreates Earharf...

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