In “The Bostonians,” the North—represented by Olive Chancellor, a wealthy woman’s rights advocate—and the South—represented by the anti-feminist womanizer and very sensual Basil Ransome—fight for control over Verena Tarrant, a young woman with a talent for public speaking who is the daughter of greedy spiritualists and the granddaughter of abolitionists.
Author: Lois Banner
Lois Banner was a founder of the field of women's history in the 1970s. She co-founded the Berkshire Conference in Women's History, the biennial conference that has been held ever since and that is considered the major event in the field; was the first woman president of the American Studies Association; and, in 2006, won the Bode-Pearson prize of the American Studies Association for Lifetime Achievement in the field. Lois is also a past president of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association and of the Coordinating Committee in Women's History of the American Historical Association, and has been a fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute of Harvard College and the Australian National University. Her biography of Elizabeth Cady Stanton has been continuously in print since 1979.