During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, almost nothing was written about the
　　contributions of women during the colonial period and the early history of the newly
　　formed United States. Lacking the right to vote and absent from the seats of power,
　　Line women were not considered an important force in history. Anne Bradstreet wrote some
　　(5)  significant poetry in the seventeenth century, Mercy Otis Warren produced the best
　　contemporary history of the American Revolution, and Abigail Adams penned important
　　letters showing she exercised great political influence over her husband, John, the second
　　President of the United States. But little or no notice was taken of these contributions.
　　During these centuries, women remained invisible in history books.
　　(10)  Throughout the nineteenth century, this lack of visibility continued, despite the efforts
　　of female authors writing about women. These writers, like most of their male
　　counterparts, were amateur historians. Their writings were celebratory in nature, and
　　they were uncritical in their selection and use of sources.
　　During the nineteenth century, however, certain feminists showed a keen sense of
　　(15) history by keeping records of activities in which women were engaged. National,
　　regional, and local women's organizations #piled accounts of their doings. Personal
　　correspondence, newspaper clippings, and souvenirs were saved and stored. These sources
　　form the core of the two greatest collections of women's history in the United States; one
　　at the Elizabeth and Arthur Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College, and the other the
　　(20) Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College. Such sources have provided valuable
　　materials for later generations of historians.
　　Despite the gathering of more information about ordinary women during the
　　nineteenth century, most of the writing about women conformed to the "great women"
　　theory of history, just as much of mainstream American history concentrated on "great
　　(25) men." To demonstrate that women were making significant contributions to American
　　life, female authors singled out women leaders and wrote biographies. or else important
　　women produced their autobiographies. Most of these leaders were involved in public
　　life as reformers, activists working for women's right to vote, or authors, and were not
　　representative at all of the great of ordinary woman. The lives of ordinary people
　　(30) continued, generally, to be untold in the American histories being published.
　　9. In the last paragraph, the author mentions all of the following as possible roles of nineteenth-century "great women" EXCEPT
　　(A) authors
　　(B) reformers
　　(C) activists for women's rights
　　(D) politicians
　　答案：D
　　Potash (the old name for potassium carbonate) is one of the two alkalis (the other
　　being soda, sodium carbonate) that were used from remote antiquity in the making of
　　glass, and from the early Middle Ages in the making of soap: the former being the
　　Line product of heating a mixture of alkali and sand, the latter a product of alkali and
　　(5)  vegetable oil. Their importance in the #munities of colonial North America need
　　hardly be stressed.