Boston, 1876: At a Women's Movement meeting, fiercely independent Olive (Vanessa Redgrave) becomes mentor to gifted young orator Verena (Madeleine Potter) - who soon attracts the amorous attentions of Olive's Southern cousin Basil (Christopher Reeve). The contesting demands of courtship and sapphic friendship in this love-triangle in all but name are further complicated by New York society matron Mrs. Burrage, who tries to secure Verena for her son....

The Bostonians is a novel by Henry James. This bittersweet tragicomedy centres on an odd triangle of characters: Basil Ransom, a political conservative from Mississippi; Olive Chancellor, Ransom's cousin and a Boston feminist; and Verena Tarrant, a pretty, young protégée of Olive's in the feminist movement. The storyline concerns the struggle between Ransom and Olive for Verena's allegiance and affection, though the novel also includes a wide panorama...

In a bygone era when twentieth-century Proper Bostonians mixed Beacon Hill formalities with countryside pleasures, Margaret Pearmain Welch (1893-1984) defied the mores of her social set and got away with it. She was the epitome of everything expected and much that was scandalous. Known as a debutante, dancer, world traveler, and hostess, she was also an indefatigable activist, writer, lecturer, lobbyist, fundraiser, and opinion shaper--grande dame...

This book reconstructs important milestones in the lives of 2,808 white, native-born men who resided in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1860 or 1870. Selected systematically from the census for those two years, these men represent two cross-sections of those viewed by contemporaries as "typical" Bostonians.Using a broad array of sources--manuscript census returns; tax assessments; city directories; birth, marriage, and death records for more than twenty...

Olive, a militant 19th century suffragette, takes on the education of a young girl with the gift of oratory. Olive hopes to use her gift for the feminist cause, but finds her student involved in a love triangle with Basil Ransom, a young lawyer from Mississippi, who is strongly opposed to the feminists in Boston.