New Paths to Power: American Women 1890-1920 (Young Oxford History of Women in the United States) - Hardcover

Smith, Karen Manners

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9780195081114: New Paths to Power: American Women 1890-1920 (Young Oxford History of Women in the United States)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195081110 ISBN 13: 9780195081114

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1994

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In the 30 years from 1890 to 1920--a period known as the Progressive Era--an eager and purposeful generation of American women swept out of the house and marched onto a new stage of freedom and responsibility. Many of them tried to improve their world by seeking work to better provide for themselves and their families or by tackling social problems that affected the country as a whole.
Girls and women (many of them immigrants or the daughters of immigrants) swelled the growing ranks of wage earners and of high school and college students. African American women, even in the racially divided South, increasingly became teachers or owners of small businesses.
Just as striking as the increase of women in the work force was the voluntary activity of both black and white women in associations organized for social reform. For working-class women, the Progressive Era was a chance to focus their energies on the labor movement and the campaign for workers' protection and child labor laws. For middle-class women raised in the traditions of women's voluntary associations, the chance to join the attack on the evils of industrial society was an extraordinary opportunity.
Following leaders such as suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt, birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger, black journalist Ida B. Wells, and social worker Jane Addams, women made significant personal and social gains. In 1920 they won the right to vote. Though the Progressive Era did not bring women full social and political equality, it was nevertheless an era aptly named, for it was a time when an unprecedented number of women began to find New Paths to Power and fulfillment.

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About the Author:

Karen Manners Smith holds degrees from Brandeis University and the University of Massachusetts. She is currently completing a life of Mary Virginia Terhune: "Marion Harland": The Making of a Household word.

From School Library Journal:

Grade 7 Up?An Unfinished Battle discusses the lives of slaves, women on the frontier, and early factory workers as well as the rise of educated females breaking ground in fields such as medicine and literature. Sigerman shows how the women's movement grew and its connections to both the abolition and temperance movements. The last chapter discusses women and the Civil War. In New Paths to Power, Smith discusses the effect of emerging technologies and the study of domestic science on women in the home. She contrasts the role of middle-class women with that of immigrants and other poor people who did domestic, factory, and other manual work. Discussing how opportunities for education and employment widened after the turn of the century, she highlights several figures such as Jane Addams and Isadora Duncan. She also focuses on the suffrage movement, ending with the passage of the 19th amendment. Both authors lay out the story of women's lives and accomplishments within the context of political and social history. The books are clearly written and cover a breadth of material in an interesting and understandable style. Black-and-white historical drawings and photographs significantly enrich the texts. While there have been a number of other titles on women in America, none includes the detail provided here. Very useful for students, but interesting reading for personal study as well.?Jane Gardner Connor, South Carolina State Library, Columbia
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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