Women and the Everyday City ─ Public Space in San Francisco, 1890-1915

In Women and the Everyday City, Jessica Ellen Sewell explores the lives of women in turn-of-the-century San Francisco. During this period of transformation of both gender roles and American cities. she shows how changes in the city affected women's ability to negotiate shifting gender norms as well as how women's increasing use of the city played a critical role in the campaign for women's suffrage.

Focusing on women's everyday use of streetcars, shops, restaurants, and theaters, Sewell reveals the impact of women on these public placesuwhat women did there, which women went there, and how these places were changed in response to their presence. Using the diaries of three women in San Francisco, Sewell studies their accounts of day trips to the city and combines them with memoirs, newspapers, maps, photographs, and her own observations of the buildings exist today to build a sense of life in San Francisco at this pivotal point in history.

Jessica Ellen Sewell is assistant professor in the American and New England Studies Program and the Department of the History of Art and Architecture at Boston University.