No Small Lives

Book excerpt: No Small Lives: Handbook of North American Early Women Adult Educators, 1925-1950 contains the stories of 26 North American women who were active in the field of adult education sometime between the years of 1925 and 1950. Generally, women’s contributions have been omitted from the field’s histories. No Small Lives is designed to address this gap and restore women to their rightful place in the history of adult education in North America. The primary audience for this book is adult education professors and their graduate students. This book can be used in courses including history and sociology of adult education, the adult learner, courses specific to exploring women’s contributions and activities. The secondary audience is the broader fields of women’s studies, feminist history, sociology and psychology or those fields that include an examination of women in the early twentieth century. It could also be useful to those focusing on more specific topics such as gender and race studies, prejudice, marginalization, power, how women were sometimes portrayed as invisible or as central figures, and women in leadership and policy making.