Piepmeier examines the lives and works of actress and playwright Anna Cora Mowatt, Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy, abolitionist and feminist orator Sojourner Truth, anti-lynching journalist Ida B. Wells, and Godey's Lady's Book editor Sarah Josepha Hale to demonstrate a more nuanced range of roles for women than traditional understandings of 19th-century womanhood allow.