To Laura Skandera-Trombley, however, he is a writer who intentionally surrounded himself with women, one whose capacity to produce fiction had almost as much to do with the environment shaped by his female family and associates as with his own talent and genius. "This book is to be applauded for its ambition, for its revisioning of the positive power of the 'company of women' on Clemens's career, and for its careful and revealing historical research."- American Historical ReviewRiverboat pilot, Western correspondent, silver prospector, and world traveler, Samuel Clemens has long seemed the quintessential man's man. Skandera-Trombley unearths a stunning array of material on the intersection of nineteenth-century American feminism and the nineteenth century's most important literary figure."- Nineteenth-Century Literature " supports a valuable idea, that Samuel Langhorne Clemens's relationships with women and with feminism contributed to his creative life to an unmistakably large extent. This fascinating, fresh, and well researched study fills in a number of important gaps in Twain scholarship, and merits the attention of anyone interested in the man and his art."-Shelley Fisher Fishkin, University of Texas, Austin Selected by Choice magazine as an Outstanding Book of the Year " Mark Twain in the Company of Women explores the key role women played in Mark Twain's life as a writer, probing the ways in which women nurtured, shaped, and, indeed, made possible some of Twain's most lasting creative achievements.
For universities the test for the future is to make the changes needed in broad areas within higher education from financial aid to curriculum, student activities, and overall campus culture in order to better foster a newly empowered majority of women students.Mark Twain in the Company of Women Laura E.
Few to this date have recognized and chronicled this extraordinary change in college education-one of society’s fundamental and influential institutions. In all areas of the university disparities still exist in terms of compensation and balance in key areas of the academy, but the overall positive trend is clear. While top university presidents are still largely male, women have achieved real gains in the overall administrative ranks and trustee positions. At the same time, after years of a disproportionate dominant male professoriate, female faculty members are now becoming the majority of university professors.
By the year 2000, women surpassed men worldwide in attendance at higher education institutions. Now almost sixty percent of the overall college student population in America is female, and still growing. The story of the American university in the past half century is about the rise of women in participation as students, faculty members, college athletes, and in subsequently changing the overall university culture for the better.