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Unsentimental Reformer: The Life of Josephine Shaw Lowell

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Waugh uses a biography of Lowell to demonstrate two themes. First, the way that female reformers adopted the language of morality and their Civil War experiences to participate in reform, and second the way that these women adopted organizational models from social science to rationalize charity in New York City. Because nineteenth century ideology restriced women to the home and its environment, female reformers had to convince the public that it was appropriate for them to participate in public debate about reform. They did this by emphasizing the moral aspects of reform movements, suggesting that the female concern for Christian purity and the sanctity of the home and family motivated female participation in reform and made women the best reformers. But reform was often a mess. Different organizations with different goals and different resources duplicated each others' efforts and wasted a great deal of money and time. Lowell saw this problem and worked to solve it by organizing charity organizations into a single, city-wide, group. The result of this effort was job training, child care, improved family assistance, and much better record-keeping.
This book is an important contribution to the history of women in the nineteenth century, and a correction of the common view that charitable organizations simply imposed middle-class ideals onto the helpless poor. It points to the sincere desire of reformers to achieve a better nation, city, and charity organization, and their embrace of the newest tools in that struggle.

This is a truly remarkable book of a remarkable woman from a remarkable family. Professor Joan Waugh elegantly displays her passion not only for this woman's history but of her family and the going ons in life. If one would like to read a fascinating bio, this would be one. Thank You Professor Waugh

Dr. Joan Waugh has truly demonstrated her mastery of prose through writing the life of a genuinely fascinating woman. Born into a life of prestige and wealth, the stoic Josephine (Effie) Shaw Lowell lives to challenge both social complacency and the public realms in which women were designated to reign. Well written, to say the least, and thoroughly encompassing of the multi-fascited aspects of 19th c. social America, i highly recommend this book to all those who search for a friend in history.