In 1926-27, The Nation published these seventeen anonymous essays by "women active in professional and public life." At that time The Nation editors noted that, "Our object is to discover the origin of their modern point of view toward men, marriage, children, and jobs." In the introduction, Elaine Showalter discusses the issues raised-from alcoholism to celibacy, from mother-daughter relationships to politics-and identifies and examines the lives of the authors, among whom are Crystal Eastman, Mary Austin, and Genevieve Taggard.