From Library Journal
Ms. magazine celebrated its 25th birthday in 1997 and has now been the subject of two books. Mary Thom's Inside Ms. (LJ 7/97) is a history of the magazine from an insider's point of view; Farrell (American studies/women's studies, Dickinson Coll.) approaches Ms. from an academic perspective, exploring the contradictions of its being a mass-market women's magazine with an explicitly feminist agenda. Ms. staff attempted to balance the demands of advertisers with the expectations of feminists, often to the dissatisfaction of both. In particular, advertising demands forced editors to focus on change at the individual level rather than advocating sweeping social reform. Farrell looks at Ms. in its social and economic context, using both primary and secondary sources to good advantage. This readable, scholarly book complements Thom's and belongs in all academic libraries as well as public libraries with women's studies collections.?Judy Solberg, George Washington Univ., Takoma Park, MD
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
A compelling story. . . . Farrell's well-researched, carefully crafted book would be an excellent textbook or supplemental reading for courses dealing with women in media, magazine journalism, advertising and women's studies, and those interested in American history and feminism in the United States.--Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly
An interesting and valuable account.--The Journal of American History
A pleasure to read and an important contribution to feminist history and mass communication scholarship.--Journal of Communication
Farrell presents not only the herstory of Ms. but also puts the magazine into perspective as it explores the tension between advocacy, political movement, ideology versus business needs, techniques of mass circulation, and advertising. . . . I suspect that are lessons in it for us as booksellers and publishers as well.--Feminist Bookstore News
Farrell looks at Ms. in its social and economic context, using both primary and secondary sources to good advantage. This readable, scholarly book . . . belongs in all academic libraries as well as public libraries with women's studies collections.--Library Journal
Amy Farrell's lucid account of the struggles among the founders, editors, writers, advertisers, and readers of Ms. magazine is an absorbing chronicle of the attempt to create a popular feminism in the U.S. at the end of the twentieth century. By weaving together the methods of the cultural historian with the analytic strategies of textual analysis, she offers an interpretation of this important cultural institution that is at once judicious and filled with insight. Yours in Sisterhood should be read by everyone with an interest in the future of feminism.--Janice A. Radway, author of A Feeling for Books: The Book-of-the-Month Club, Literary Taste, and Middle-Class Desire
In what will surely be the definitive history of Ms. magazine, Farrell has illuminated with skill and authority the many tensions inherent in the production of a commercial vehicle created to disseminate feminism. Readers whose consciousness was honed by Ms. as well as feminist scholars and students of oppositional movements will find in this work much that engages and informs.--Jane Sherron De Hart, coauthor of Sex, Gender, and the Politics of ERA
From the Back Cover
Traces the history of Ms. magazine through its final commercial issue in 1989, with particular focus on the tensions between its feminist stance and commercial culture.
About the Author
Amy Erdman Farrell is associate professor of American studies and coordinator of women's studies at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
