The experience of women in the nineteenth century has generated a wealth of interdisciplinary research in recent decades. The Columbia Guide to American Women in the Nineteenth Century presents the best of the recent scholarship available in a concise, "one-stop" resource, providing students of women's history and nineteenth-century American culture with an authoritative source of information and interpretation.

The authors emphasize areas in which scholars have identified important changes (such as suffrage and reform), topics in which researchers are now making great strides (such as racial, ethnic, religious, and regional diversity), and innovative and relatively recent explorations (for example, work on female sexuality). Accessible overview articles and alphabetical encyclopedia-like entries are combined in a comprehensive, easy-to-use volume.

Part 1 contains a historiographical essay followed by a ten-chapter narrative overview. These chapters include discussions of families and households, labor and the workforce, religion and morality, feminism and equal rights, reform and voluntarism, and more.

Part 2 is an A-to-Z listing of concise entries on key terms, notable figures, political movements, social and religious organizations, and legislation.

Part 3 is an annotated chronology placing events in historical context.

Part 4 is a topically organized selection of the best resources for further research, including general historical works, biographies and autobiographies, journals, archives, web sites, novels, and films.