what you read in history books, the prosperityof America is strictly man made. Very few female namesappear in the index of any' standard economic history of theUnited States, and if the word "women" occurs in the indexat all, it refers to some parenthetical remark on the growingemployment of women outside the home, or the impact oftheir "emancipation" on the birthrate. : Economic historians readily concede that the work of women has always been essential to the economy, but they have never thought that they had to pay special attention to it. This book challenges that convention. The changing home duties of women have been an important influence on the development of.the economy at every stage of our history. In addition, there have always been some women who have stepped outside the assigned limits to work in business or the professions, or to shape economic affairs in a nontraditional way. A woman printed the signed copy of the Declaration of Independence, and since then there have always been American women making money or exercising economic power. Enterprising women have always been on the scene, but generally in the background. Their contemporaries