Barbara Grizzuti Harrison - First Publications

First Publications

By now Harrison had become involved with the women's movement, and she began writing on feminist themes for various publications. Her first book, Unlearning the Lie: Sexism in School, was published in 1969. Harrison was one of the first contributors to Ms. magazine.

Harrison became nationally known in 1978 when she published Visions of Glory: A History and a Memory of Jehovah's Witnesses, which combined childhood memoirs with a history of the Jehovah's Witness movement. Although Harrison expressed admiration for individual Witnesses and wrote sympathetically of their persecution, she portrayed the faith itself as harsh and tyrannical, racist and sexist.

Harrison was an agnostic when she began Visions of Glory, but while writing it she experienced a spiritual epiphany and converted to Catholicism. Her conversion became the subject of the book's last chapter. Harrison drew much of her spirituality from the Catholic Worker Movement and from the medieval female mystics.