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,
Line women were not considered an important force in history. Anne Bradstreet wrote some
(5) 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.
(10) 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
(15) 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
form the core of the two greatest collections of women's history in the United States; one
at the Elizabeth and Arthur Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College, and the other the
(20) 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
(25) 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
(30) continued, generally, to be untold in the American histories being published.
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
答案：D
Potash (the old name for potassium carbonate) is one of the two alkalis (the other
being soda, sodium carbonate) that were used from remote antiquity in the making of
glass, and from the early Middle Ages in the making of soap: the former being the
Line product of heating a mixture of alkali and sand, the latter a product of alkali and
(5) vegetable oil. Their importance in the communities of colonial North America need
hardly be stressed.
