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Page Turners: 'America's Women'

Aired October 15, 2003 - 15:20   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: The interesting and the inspiring stories of American women are collected in a new book that begins with the nation's founding and covers both the famous and the often overlooked. The book is called "America's Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines." The author, Gail Collins, who is also the editorial page editor at "The New York Times."
She joins me today from San Diego.

Gail Collins, you have a full-time job. Why did you go write this book?

GAIL COLLINS, AUTHOR, "AMERICAN WOMEN": Well, I think you always write the books that you wanted to read at some point. And I always wanted to see if I could tell the whole story in a way that was partly from the ground up, so that people could kind of figure out what regular women were doing and feeling and how they were managing. I'm one of the people that always wants to know, well, where did they go to the bathroom and stuff like that.

WOODRUFF: Well, the fact that you didn't know suggests that historians haven't done a very good job of telling women's history.

COLLINS: No, actually, there's an amazing number of incredibly wonderful books about women's history. Most of them are kind of narrow, like the women on the Chisholm Trail or whatever, or they're more academic.

So, I thought, if I could just read all these spectacular books that are out there, that maybe I could spin one story that everybody could read, and then follow my trail backwards.

WOODRUFF: You write, Gail, about three phenomena in this country that really helped to shape the lives of American women. What were they?

COLLINS: Well, one was wars.

Every time there's a war, it's an emergency. And it requires somehow that women do things that they aren't supposed to do for at least the duration. And whenever the war then ends, women are supposed to go back to whatever their role was before. But it never quite happens that way.

After the Revolutionary War, they didn't get any political rights, but they did get the understanding of the nation that women should be educated, which was huge. And then, once women were to be educated and you needed public schools, the women got the right to be teachers. Whenever there's an economic crisis, also, the same thing exactly happens. If there's an economic crisis, women are called upon. Any time you need a lot of literate, low-paid workers, women are always going to turn out to be the answer.

WOODRUFF: Were there particular women in here that you really enjoyed bringing to the light who had been pretty much overlooked?

COLLINS: Yes.

Everybody has their own little favorites. And some of them were people that no one had ever heard of. There's a wonderful story at the very end of the suffrage drive, when women had been working for 100 years and they were totally exhausted. And they were down to their last state, ratifying their last state. That was Tennessee. And they got through the Senate. They had one more vote, one-vote margin.

And one of their supporters, the speaker, dropped out and decided he wasn't going to vote for it. And they thought they had lost everything. And one little guy gets up who is 24 years old and says: I was going to vote against this, but I've got this letter from my mom here. And she says, vote for suffrage, young man. And I always do what my mother says I should do.

So I always thought mom there was the hero of the entire suffrage movement for a minute.

WOODRUFF: If only more people did what their mothers told them to do, right?

(CROSSTALK)

COLLINS: We'd all be so much happier if we all did what our mothers said, yes.

(LAUGHTER)

WOODRUFF: "400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates. Explain that part to us.

COLLINS: Susan B. Anthony always said, if -- and, of course, Susan B. Anthony never got married -- "If you marry a rich man, he'll make you a doll. If you marry a poor man, he'll make you a drudge. So I'm not marrying anyone at all."

But for most women, the role in American history was to be a full-time homemaker, to be a helpmate. And I write a lot in the book about the desire of women to have homes and how they struggled to get the right to be full-time homemakers. And then, once they got it, then there's sort of the competing tension and struggle to get out of the home and to get careers and jobs.

(CROSSTALK)

COLLINS: And the heroines are just the amazing people who stood up and said, no, I'm going to do that. I'm going to do something entirely my own.

WOODRUFF: So many great, great stories here. Gail Collins, who writes with passion about American women -- again, the title, "400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines."

Gail Collins, it's great to see you. Thanks for talking to me.

COLLINS: Thank you, Judy.

WOODRUFF: Good to see you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired October 15, 2003 - 15:20   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: The interesting and the inspiring stories of American women are collected in a new book that begins with the nation's founding and covers both the famous and the often overlooked. The book is called "America's Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines." The author, Gail Collins, who is also the editorial page editor at "The New York Times."
She joins me today from San Diego.

Gail Collins, you have a full-time job. Why did you go write this book?

GAIL COLLINS, AUTHOR, "AMERICAN WOMEN": Well, I think you always write the books that you wanted to read at some point. And I always wanted to see if I could tell the whole story in a way that was partly from the ground up, so that people could kind of figure out what regular women were doing and feeling and how they were managing. I'm one of the people that always wants to know, well, where did they go to the bathroom and stuff like that.

WOODRUFF: Well, the fact that you didn't know suggests that historians haven't done a very good job of telling women's history.

COLLINS: No, actually, there's an amazing number of incredibly wonderful books about women's history. Most of them are kind of narrow, like the women on the Chisholm Trail or whatever, or they're more academic.

So, I thought, if I could just read all these spectacular books that are out there, that maybe I could spin one story that everybody could read, and then follow my trail backwards.

WOODRUFF: You write, Gail, about three phenomena in this country that really helped to shape the lives of American women. What were they?

COLLINS: Well, one was wars.

Every time there's a war, it's an emergency. And it requires somehow that women do things that they aren't supposed to do for at least the duration. And whenever the war then ends, women are supposed to go back to whatever their role was before. But it never quite happens that way.

After the Revolutionary War, they didn't get any political rights, but they did get the understanding of the nation that women should be educated, which was huge. And then, once women were to be educated and you needed public schools, the women got the right to be teachers. Whenever there's an economic crisis, also, the same thing exactly happens. If there's an economic crisis, women are called upon. Any time you need a lot of literate, low-paid workers, women are always going to turn out to be the answer.

WOODRUFF: Were there particular women in here that you really enjoyed bringing to the light who had been pretty much overlooked?

COLLINS: Yes.

Everybody has their own little favorites. And some of them were people that no one had ever heard of. There's a wonderful story at the very end of the suffrage drive, when women had been working for 100 years and they were totally exhausted. And they were down to their last state, ratifying their last state. That was Tennessee. And they got through the Senate. They had one more vote, one-vote margin.

And one of their supporters, the speaker, dropped out and decided he wasn't going to vote for it. And they thought they had lost everything. And one little guy gets up who is 24 years old and says: I was going to vote against this, but I've got this letter from my mom here. And she says, vote for suffrage, young man. And I always do what my mother says I should do.

So I always thought mom there was the hero of the entire suffrage movement for a minute.

WOODRUFF: If only more people did what their mothers told them to do, right?

(CROSSTALK)

COLLINS: We'd all be so much happier if we all did what our mothers said, yes.

(LAUGHTER)

WOODRUFF: "400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates. Explain that part to us.

COLLINS: Susan B. Anthony always said, if -- and, of course, Susan B. Anthony never got married -- "If you marry a rich man, he'll make you a doll. If you marry a poor man, he'll make you a drudge. So I'm not marrying anyone at all."

But for most women, the role in American history was to be a full-time homemaker, to be a helpmate. And I write a lot in the book about the desire of women to have homes and how they struggled to get the right to be full-time homemakers. And then, once they got it, then there's sort of the competing tension and struggle to get out of the home and to get careers and jobs.

(CROSSTALK)

COLLINS: And the heroines are just the amazing people who stood up and said, no, I'm going to do that. I'm going to do something entirely my own.

WOODRUFF: So many great, great stories here. Gail Collins, who writes with passion about American women -- again, the title, "400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines."

Gail Collins, it's great to see you. Thanks for talking to me.

COLLINS: Thank you, Judy.

WOODRUFF: Good to see you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com