This book describes the public role of women in American life. It begins with the differing connotations of `public man' and `public woman': the former implying public-spiritedness, the latter a woman who is sexually available. It discusses factors such as changes in internal dynamics of the family and the new religious roles for women that served to undermine patriarchal patterns of authority and made women feel capable of moving into the area of public terrain in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Matthews argues that by the twentieth century women, (including women of colour) had staked out a wide claim for public roles. The role of women in public life in the twentieth century is also examined, particularly contemporary feminism of women's public role.