"Women are the backbone of the church," says an old African-American aphorism. Since the 1660s, women have made up the majority of members in almost all American religious groups. They have provided essential financial and social support and worked tirelessly in the background of church-based activities. Throughout American history, women have raised money for churches and synagogues, embroidered altar cloths, taught Sunday school, prepared parish meals, and sung in the choir. They have educated their children in their beliefs and taken them to their places of worship. Yet it is primarily men who have historically occupied the high rungs of church hierarchy and made the important decisions affecting their congregations. Ann Braude examines the central role of women in American religious history, focusing on their efforts to achieve greater recognition and equal rights, their recent admission to religious leadership, and the emergence of feminist theology in the late 20th century. Colonist Margaret Winthrop, African-American preacher Jarena Lee, Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy, and Zionist leader Henrietta Szold are among the women discussed in these pages who have made major contributions to the spiritual and material growth of religious organizations in America.

..". Ann Braude still speaks powerfully to unique issues of women s creativity-spiritual as well as political-in a superb account of the controversial nineteenth-century Spiritualist movement." Jon Butler

"Radical Spirits is a vitally important book... that] has... influenced a generation of young scholars." Marie Griffith

In Radical Spirits, Ann Braude contends that the early women s rights movement and Spiritualism went hand in hand. Her book makes a convincing argument for the importance of religion in the study of American women s history.

In this new edition, Braude discusses the impact of the book on the scholarship of the last decade and assesses the place of religion in interpretations of women s history in general and the women s rights movement in particular. A review of current scholarship and suggestions for further reading make it even more useful for contemporary teachers and students."