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This fascinating, well-written, absorbing biography of a remarkable woman educator and reformer of the mid-nineteenth century reminds us of how much of our present quality of life we owe to the dedicated visions and efforts of outstanding men and women of the past. Our gratitude goes to Dr. Jean Silver-Isenstadt for her superb detailed scholarship that makes this span of our history come alive. While the book is not about psychoanalysis, it is about a young woman who turned the trauma of a nightmarish, ten-year-long violent marriage into a missionary goal of helping women and changing society.
We are inclined to have a one-sided vision of trauma as the initiator of neuroses, and often lose sight of trauma as motivator for a productive and creative life. We look for core experiences, patterns, passions, and influences that dovetail together to give meaning and form to a life. Mary Gove Nichols' life deeply satisfies our craving for a coherent design. Her life reads like a well-designed novel. All events, her parents' contradictory influences, her sister's early death, her miserable marriage, and then the many fortuitous encounters, seem absolutely essential facets in determining the dynamic shape of her successful influential life. But Mary's fate was, of course, largely directed by her sharp, goal-directed, down-to-earth intelligence, made effective by her gift to write and articulate her ideas. Drawing on Mary's prolific writing, the author could ignite the story with Mary's own words.
The book is far more than Mary Nichols' biography. The author is exquisitely attuned to the contextual relevance of meaning. The world in which Mary lived, its mores, marriage laws, religious life, and especially the characters of the then-prevalent reform movements, is brought to life with details that engage our imagination and interest. Once Thomas Low Nichols enters Mary's life, the biography is equally about him and