Intimate Practices: Literacy and Cultural Work in U.S. Women's Clubs, 1880-1920

Winner of the 1995 University of Illinois Press-National Women's Studies         Association manuscript prize       Women's clubs at the turn of the century were numerous, dedicated to         a number of issues, and crossed class, religious, and racial lines. Emphasizing         the intimacy engendered by shared reading and writing in these groups,         Anne Ruggles Gere contends that these literacy practices meant that club         members took an active part in reinventing the nation during a period         of major change. Gere uses archival material that documents club members'         perspectives and activities around such issues as Americanization, womanhood,         peace, consumerism, benevolence, taste, and literature--and offers a rare         depth of insight into the interests and lives of American women from the         fin de siÈcle through the beginning of the roaring twenties.       Intimate Practices is unique in its exploration of a range of         women's clubs--Mormon, Jewish, white middle-class, African American, and         working class--and paints a vast and colorful multicultural, multifaceted         canvas of these widely-divergent women's groups.…