From School Library Journal
YA-- The story of women's continuous struggle for equality during the early 20th century is presented in this well-researched book that offers copious statistics as documentation. Primary sources, diaries, letters, magazines, and photographs bring the era to life. A concise, crisp type on heavy paper makes the book easy to read. The detailed index is divided into subject subdivisions, and the bibliography is extensive. Source notes appear at the end of each chapter.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Using evidence collected from published sources and some primary sources in the form of diaries and magazine and journal articles from the early 20th century, the Schneiders ( Sound Off! American Military Women Speak Out , Dutton, 1988, and Into the Breach: American Women Overseas in World War I , Viking, 1991) have produced a well-written survey of women in the Progressive era. At the beginning of this century, women participated in society's reform through changes in the definitions of housekeeping, family raising, and employment on the farm and in the factory. Through clubs, women learned organizational skills, which they applied to the reform movements in labor, suffrage, peace activism, war support, sexual protection, health and hygiene, and civil liberties. African Americans faced greater challenges in most of these areas. This work chronicles the lives of common women in the context of their public and private activities. Lynn's work, in contrast, employs a more traditional scholarly method. Taking up where the Schneiders leave off, in the post-World War I era, it examines the YWCA and the AFSC (Quakers/Society of Friends) as progressive organs. It discusses the reasons women were drawn to activism in the interwar period and the nature of their activism. It argues that the activities of many of these women laid the groundwork for 1960s feminism. Her book is based, in part, on oral interviews with women activists. Unlike the Schneiders' book, it requires a more sophisticated reader who possesses working definitions of such terms as "Christian Left" and "Secular Left." Both books are highly recommended for scholars and lay readers alike. Together they complete a picture of Progressive women begun in Lori Ginzberg's Women and the Work of Benevolence (Yale, 1990) and Noralee Frankel and Nancy S. Dye's Gender, Class, Race, and Reform in the Progressive Era (Univ. Pr. of Kentucky, 1991).
- Jenny Presnell, Miami Univ. Libs., Oxford, Ohio
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Jenny Presnell, Miami Univ. Libs., Oxford, Ohio
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
