Over generations, Australian women have envisaged a world of freedom. This new collection of documents - letters, diary extracts, poems, public speeches - charts the visions that inspired women and the obstacles that confronted them. Dealing with a period from colonisation to early Federation in 1901, Freedom Bound I shows how intertwined were women's public and personal lives, and how bound by custom, ties, affection and duties. The different meanings of freedom have been shaped by the nature of women's oppression, their quests given focus by their different points of departure. Convict women protested - often violently - at the indignities they endured; Aboriginal women protested at the cruelty of the frontier and the paternalism of the mission; and white middle-class women demanded the freedom to participate in the public world. Together with its companion volume, Freedom Bound II, which deals with the twentieth century, this volume documents the dreams that inspired women, the pleasures and pain that informed their politics and the desires that enthralled them, even as they bade them to be free. It is an essential resource for students and teachers of Australian women's history.

Freedom Bound is about the origins of modern America - a history of colonizing, work and civic identity from the beginnings of English presence on the mainland until the Civil War. It is a history of migrants and migrations, of colonizers and colonized, of households and servitude and slavery, and of the freedom all craved and some found. Above all it is a history of the law that framed the entire process. Freedom Bound tells how colonies were planted in occupied territories, how they were populated with migrants - free and unfree - to do the work of colonizing and how the newcomers secured possession. It tells of the new civic lives that seemed possible in new commonwealths and of the constraints that kept many from enjoying them. It follows the story long past the end of the eighteenth century until the American Civil War, when - just for a moment - it seemed that freedom might finally be unbound.

The movement for black equality set in historical perspective.

Praise for ELLA BAKER "Splendid biography . . . a valuable contribution to the growing body of literature on the critical roles of women in civil rights."--Joyce A. Ladner, The Washington Post Book World "The definitive biography of Ella Baker, a force behind the civil rights movement and almost every social justice movement of this century."--Gloria Steinem "This book will be received with plaudits for its empathy, insightfulness, and gendered narration of an astonishingly neglected life that was pivotal in the pursuit of American justice and humanity."--David Levering Lewis Pulitzer Prize-winning author of W. E. B. Du Bois "Pathbreaking. By illuminating the little-known story of how profoundly Ella Baker influenced the most radical activists of the era, Grant's graceful portrayal reveals Miss Baker's transformative impact on recent history."--Kathleen Cleaver

A definitive, illustrated account of Los Angeles's black community in the half century before World War I details African-American community life and political activism during the city's transformation from a small town to a sprawling metropolis.

Over generations, Australian women have envisaged a world of freedom. This new collection of documents - letters, songs, poetry, diary extracts - charts the visions that inspired women and the obstacles that confronted them. Exploring twentieth-century Australia, Freedom Bound II shows how intertwined were women's public and personal lives, and how bound by custom, ties, affections and duties. The different meanings of freedom have been shaped by the nature of women's oppression, their quests given focus by their different points of departure. Aboriginal women sought self-determination and the right to keep their children; migrant women sought to affirm culture and family ties, and escape discrimination and poverty. Overburdened mothers wanted relief from continual childbearing and a measure of self-fulfilment. Numerous women have campaigned for freedom from domestic tyranny and male violence. Together with its companion volume, Freedom Bound I, which deals with the period of colonisation, this volume documents the dreams that inspired women, the pleasures and the pain that informed their politics and the desires that enthralled them, even as they bade them to be free. It is an essential resource for students and teachers of Australian women's history.

"All stories are based on research from the Runaway Slaves in Britain project by the University of Glasgow."--Page 4 of cover.