american women history

 

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, almost nothing was written about the contributions of women during the colonial period and the early history of the newly formed United States. Lacking the right to vote and absent from the seats of power, women were not considered an important force in history. Anne Bradstreet wrote some significant poetry in the seventeenth century, Mercy Otis Warren produced the best contemporary history of the American Revolution, and Abigail Adams penned important letters showing she exercised great political influence over her husband, John, the second President of the United States. But little or no notice was taken of these contributions. During these centuries, women remained invisible in history books.

Throughout the nineteenth century, this lack of visibility continued, despite the efforts of female authors writing about women. These writers, like most of their male counterparts, were amateur historians. Their writings were celebratory in nature, and they were uncritical in their selection and use of sources.

During the nineteenth century, however, certain feminists showed a keen sense of history by keeping records of activities in which women were engaged. National, regional, and local women's organizations compiled accounts of their doings. Personal correspondence, newspaper clippings, and souvenirs were saved and stored. These sources from the core of the two greatest collections of women's history in the United States one at the Elizabeth and Arthur Schlesinger Library at Radcliffé College, and the other the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College. Such sources have provided valuable materials for later generations of historians.

Despite the gathering of more information about ordinary women during the nineteenth century, most of the writing about women conformed to the "great women" theory of history, just as much of mainstream American history concentrated on "great men." To demonstrate that women were making significant contributions to American life, female authors singled out women leaders and wrote biographies, or else important women produced their autobiographies. Most of these leaders were involved in public life as reformers, activists working for women's right to vote, or authors, and were not representative at all of the great of ordinary woman. The lives of ordinary people continued, generally, to be untold in the American histories being published.

托福阅读题目：

1. What does the passage mainly discuss?

(A) The role of literature in earlyAmerican histories

(B) The place ofAmerican women in written histories

(C) The keen sense of history shown byAmerican women

(D) The "great women" approach to history used by American historians

2. The word "contemporary" in line 6 means that the history was

(A) informative

(B) written at that time

(C) thoughtful

(D) faultfinding

3. In the first paragraph, Bradstreet, Warren, and Adams are mentioned to show that

(A) a woman's status was changed by marriage

(B) even the contributions of outstanding women were ignored

(C) only three women were able to get their writing published

(D) poetry produced by women was more readily accepted than other writing by women

4. The word "celebratory" in line 12 means that the writings referred to were

(A) related to parties

(B) religious

(C) serious

(D) full of praise

5. The word "they" in line 12 refers to

(A) efforts

(B) authors

(C) counterparts

(D) sources

6. In the second paragraph, what weakness in nineteenth-century histories does the author point

out?

(A) They put too much emphasis on daily activities

(B) They left out discussion of the influence of money on politics.

(C) The sources of the information they were based on were not necessarily accurate.

(D) They were printed on poor-quality paper.

7. On the basis of information in the third paragraph, which of the following would most likely

have been collected by nineteenth-century feminist organizations?

(A) Newspaper accounts of presidential election results

(B) Biographies of John Adams

(C) Letters from a mother to a daughter advising her how to handle a family problem

(D) Books about famous graduates of the country's first college

8. What use was made of the nineteenth-century women's history materials in the Schlesinger

Library and the Sophia Smith Collection?

(A) They were combined and published in a multivolume encyclopedia

(B) They formed the basis of college courses in the nineteenth century.

(C) They provided valuable information for twentieth-century historical researchers.

(D) They were shared among women's colleges throughout the United States.

9. In the last paragraph, the author mentions all of the following as possible roles of

nineteenth-century "great women" EXCEPT

(A) authors

(B) reformers

(C) activists for women's rights

(D) politicians

10. The word "representative" in line 29 is closest in meaning to

(A) typical

(B) satisfied

(C) supportive

(D) distinctive

托福阅读答案：

BBBDB CCCDA

 

 

 

 

 

 Their writings were celebratory in nature, and they were uncritical in their selection and use of sources.

这句话难理解，主要是不了解英文的表达和深刻内涵，不是因为不理解这里面的英文单词的意思所造成的的。

庆祝的书写 书写赞歌吧 伟光正吧。 

a keen sense of history 对于历史的热切

 conformed to 遵照

or else 要不然（就是）

 

自己的答案和解释：

1b
2b
3b
4d
5b
6c
7c 这个问题真的设置的不好 明明是会保存和女性参政有关的吧？虽然我觉得一定是选择c
8c
9d
10A 最后这个我表示怀疑 不是特别好的理解 觉得这题目出得有点垃圾。待会儿好好查一下字典
 

  typical 也有代表性的意思，只不过我看到的例子少而已。

ADJ You use typical to describe someone or something that shows the most usual characteristics of a particular type of person or thing, and is therefore a good example of that type. 

ADJ You use typical to describe someone or something that shows the most usual characteristics of a particular type of person or thing, and is therefore a good example of that type. 

 

昨晚这边阅读的感受，我大概花了45分钟左右，而且是查单词和