Republican Women: Feminism and Conservatism from Suffrage through the Rise of the New Right (Gender and American Culture) [Paperback]

Catherine E. Rymph (Author)

Book Description

Series: Gender and American Culture | Publication Date: January 9, 2006

In the wake of the Nineteenth Amendment, Republican women set out to forge a place for themselves within the Grand Old Party. As Catherine Rymph explains, their often conflicting efforts over the subsequent decades would leave a mark on both conservative politics and American feminism.

Part of an emerging body of work on women's participation in partisan politics, Republican Women explores the dilemmas confronting progressive, conservative, and moderate Republican women as they sought to achieve a voice for themselves within the GOP. Rymph first examines women's grassroots organizing for the party in the decades following the initiation of women's suffrage. She then traces Marion Martin's efforts from 1938 to 1946 to shape the National Federation of Women's Republican Clubs, the party's increasing dependence on the work of women at the grassroots in the postwar years, and the eventual mobilization of many of these women behind Barry Goldwater, in defiance of party leaders.

From the flux of the party's post-Goldwater years emerged two groups of women on a collision course: a group of party insiders calling themselves feminists challenged supporters of independent Republican Phyllis Schlafly's growing movement opposing the Equal Rights Amendment. Their battles over the meanings of gender, power, and Republicanism continued earlier struggles even as they helped shape the party's fundamental transformation in the Reagan years.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Well-researched and its chronological arrangement provides a coherent structure to the story. . . . A highly-readable, worthwhile history of the elite females who carved out a place for women in the GOP at the national level."
— Florida Historical Quarterly

"A tightly focused monograph. . . . A well-researched example of how gender concerns can be integrated with political history."
— Indiana Magazine of History

"An important contribution to recent scholarship examining the relationship between feminism, conservatism, and women's political activism. . . . Will prove valuable to anyone wishing to understand the rise of conservatism as well as the place of women within the conservative movement."
— Historian

"Historians of modern conservatism and the Republican Party would be well served to read Rymph's book, as she sheds light on an understudied aspect of the GOP. . . . A highly-readable, worthwhile history of the elite females who carved out a place for women in the GOP at the national level."
— Florida Historical Quarterly

"This book represents the best of what the new women's political history has to offer: an interpretation that reshapes both women's history and political history equally well. Rymph's delineation of women's partisan activity in the postsuffrage era gives an in-depth overview of women's struggles in the Republican Party that has more texture and historical context than previous broad surveys. She also revisits the perennially important question of separatism versus integration as a strategy for women's advancement, and does a very good job of keeping questions of race and African American women's participation central to the story, not just a footnote or afterthought.(Susan Ware, editor of Notable American Women: Completing the Twentieth Century"

From the Inside Flap

Rymph examines the first 60 years of women's activism in the Republican Party, starting in 1920, when women gained the right to vote. She traces the formation of women's Republican clubs; the party's increasing dependence on the work of women at the grassroots in the postwar years; and the eventual mobilization of many of these women behind Barry Goldwater, in defiance of party leaders. Two groups of women emerged on a collision course: party insiders who called themselves feminists challenged Phyllis Schlafly's growing movement opposing the ERA. Their battles over the meanings of gender, power, and Republicanism helped shape the transformation the party would face during the Reagan years.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press (January 9, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807856525
• ISBN-13: 978-0807856529
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #830,937 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An endorsement from a Democrat, March 6, 2006

By 

Robin Orlowski "political activist" (United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Republican Women: Feminism and Conservatism from Suffrage through the Rise of the New Right (Gender and American Culture) (Paperback)

Examining how different factions of women sought access to and within the GOP, this book was a gripping read.

Beginning in the aftermath of the 19th Amendment's ratification, the book chronicles women's political activity. Rymph then goes on to explain how different factions developed different definitions of 'women' and 'Republicanism' as the decades subsequently passed.

The rise of the modern conservative movement came through the 1964 campaign. Many of the women party activists independently mobilized behind Barry Goldwater's campaign. They demonstrated that they would not just rubber stamp whomever the party bosses had wanted to receive the nomination.

Such action also illustrated that conservative Republican women were (if not necessarily how I and colleagues would immediately think of it) leaders with political power of their own which would effectively be flexed. Researched from a strictly nonpartisan and scholarly perspective, this work concedes that conservative women are politically effective.

I've read many other books on women and politics, but this work provided a never-before-read perspective. Prior to reading this book, I honestly had no idea that women's role in the Republican party was so complex.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Activist Women, July 12, 2006

By 

Jane Macauley - See all my reviews

This review is from: Republican Women: Feminism and Conservatism from Suffrage through the Rise of the New Right (Gender and American Culture) (Paperback)

Growing up as one of Jane H Macauley's daughters, I heard all the great backroom and campaign stories, but I never put them in the wider context of the growing engagement of women in politics until reading Rymph's fascinating account. My mother and her friends are passionate believers in the grassroots and the precincts, and crisscrossed the country to get out the vote. Feminist slogans peppered my childhood, and the ERA was the grail. The hijacking of the progressive and moderate Republican women's organization is an enlightening chapter -- let's hijack it back, ladies!