In 1930 Dr. Karl A. Menninger, one of America's most distinguished psychiatrists, was asked by the editor of Ladies' Home Journal to write a monthly column that would address mental health issues and answer questions from readers. The result was the widely popular column "Mental Hygiene in the Home," which ran for eighteen months at a time when the American public was just beginning to popularize the idea of mental hygiene and psychotherapy.

Of the thousands of letters Dr. Menninger received, only a small number were printed in the Journal. However, he wrote personal responses to all of them, over two thousand of which have been preserved. For this book, Howard J. Faulkner and Virginia D. Pruitt have selected more than eighty exchanges that provide intimate glimpses into the personal lives of women from across the country.

Most notable in this fascinating collection is the precision and clarity of the women's voices, as well as Dr. Menninger's incisive, analytical, and elegantly phrased replies. The topics that were of major concern to these women included their own sexuality, cheating husbands, problem children, and interfering in-lawsþin other words, the same issues that many women still face today. Although Dr. Menninger's advice may sometimes be questionable by modern standards, these letters provide a useful look at the social assumptions of the 1930s.

Included in the book is an excellent introduction by the editors that traces America's affection for advice columns, chronicles Dr. Menninger's life and work, and provides an overview of the development of psychotherapy. Entertaining as well as informative, these letters not only offer a valuable reflection of women's issues during the Depression era but also invite comparison and contrast with contemporary problems, attitudes, and values.

Aristocratic women exerted unprecedented political and social influence in Florence throughout the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. During this period, female members of the powerful Medici family governed the city for the first and only time in its history. These women also helped shape the city's artistic life, commissioning works of music, art, and theater that were inscribed with their own concerns and aspirations. Echoes of Women's Voices examines the patronage of individuals and institutions, particularly convents, which have remained, until now, largely neglected by scholars.

Through commissions, patrons sought to promote a vision of the world and their place in it. The unique social norms, laws, educational backgrounds, and life experiences of female patrons meant the expression of a worldview that differed significantly from that of their male counterparts. Joining exceptional archival research with telling analysis of significant examples of music, art, and drama, Kelley Harness challenges the prevailing view that Florence saw a political and artistic decline during this period. She argues convincingly that the female domination of these years brought forth artistic patronage that was both continuous and well-conceived.