Publisher's Synopsis
Journalist Rachel Cooke goes back in time to offer an entertaining and iconoclastic look at ten women in the 1950s--pioneers whose professional careers and complicated private lives helped to create the opportunities available to today's women. These intrepid and ambitious individuals--among them a film director, a cook, an architect, an editor, an archaeologist, and a race car driver--left the house, discovered the bliss of work, and ushered in the era of the working woman. Daring and independent, these remarkable unsung heroines--whose obscurity makes their accomplishments all the more astonishing and relevant--loved passionately, challenged men's control, made their own mistakes, and took life on their own terms, breaking new ground and offering inspiration. Their individual portraits form a landscape of 1950s culture, and of women's unique--and rapidly evolving--role. Before there could be a Danica Patrick, there had to be a Sheila
