"The time has come to define feminism; it is no longer possible to ignore it." The Century Magazine, 1914 In this landmark addition to scholarship, Nancy F. Cott, author of The Bonds of Womanhood, offers a new interpretation of American feminism during the early decades of this century―a period traditionally viewed as on in which women won the right to vote and then lost interest in feminist issues. Cott argues instead that his period was a time of crisis and transition from the nineteenth-century "woman movement’ to the beginning of modern feminism. Many of the issues that are central to women today, says Cott, were firmly articulated in the early decades of this century. For example, the problem of defining sexual equality so as to recognize sexual difference between men and women, the ambiguous potential of a movement seeking individual freedoms for women by mobilizing sex solidarity, and the tensions involved in attaining full expression in work and love are all enduring elements of feminism seized upon by women of the 1910s and 1920s. First discussing how feminism was indebted to its predecessors, Cott shows that increasing heterogeneity and diverse loyalties among women in the early twentieth century contradicted the premise of the nineteenth-century "cause of woman" (the singular noun symbolizing the unity of the female sex). From this crisis emerged feminism, championing individual variability and refuting the premise that a singular "woman" existed. Cott focuses on the suffrage-campaign milieu in which feminism arose, giving particular attention to the character and role of the National Woman’s Party from its militant suffrage days to its advocacy of the equal right amendment in the 1920s. Against prevailing interpretations of the decline of women’s political activities after 1920, Cott counterposes the swelling numbers in women’s voluntary associations and their political efforts. She also analyzes the pitfalls that awaited women who tried for effectiveness in the male-dominated political parties. She sets the controversy over the equal rights amendment in new context, discussing the full dimensions of the conflict as not merely over personalities, tactics, or class loyalties, but as a signal example of the modern problem of capturing sexual equality and sexual difference in law. The book explores the irony-strewn path of women who as aspiring professionals and political actors attempted to put into practice the feminist intent to replace the abstraction "woman" with, instead, "the human sex." This history―the story of women who first claimed the name feminists―builds an essential bridge between the presuffrage period and today.

The Grounding of Modern Feminism

History

Cott, Nancy F.

Americas

Yale University Press

A Woman Making History: Mary Ritter Beard Through Her Letters

New Haven 1991-lst Yale. 378p. Index. A few photo illus. Fine in fine DJ. Beard 1876-1958, historian , social reformer and women's suffrage campaigner.

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

This Veritas edition of Nancy Cott's acclaimed study includes a new introduction by the author, situating the work for a new generation of readers. "Elegant and convincing. . . . Better than any other work available, The Bonds of Womanhood describes both the classic attitudes of the nineteenth century toward women and the opposition to the oppression of women in the historical context from which they grew."--Willie Lee Rose, New York Review of Books "A lovely, gentle, scholarly, and valuable book."--Doris Grumbach, New York Times Book Review

The Bonds of Womanhood: "Woman's Sphere" in New England, 1780-1835 (Veritas Paperbacks)

What Is Feminism?

This study contains essays covering health, motherhood, child abuse, social welfare and the law. The book also features, besides some recent work on health, on social policy and on law, theoretical discussions by Hilary Rose, Rosalind Delmar and Juliet Mitchell.

What is feminism?

Politics & Social Sciences

Mitchell, Juliet

OAKLEY, ANN

Social Sciences

B. Blackwell

A Heritage of Her Own: Toward a New Social History of American Women (A Touchstone Book)

Pleck, Elizabeth H.

Historical Study & Educational Resources

American Council of Learned Societies/University of Michigan

We commonly think of marriage as a private matter between two people, a personal expression of love and commitment. In this pioneering history, Nancy F. Cott demonstrates that marriage is and always has been a public institution. 
 From the founding of the United States to the present day, imperatives about the necessity of marriage and its proper form have been deeply embedded in national policy, law, and political rhetoric. Legislators and judges have envisioned and enforced their preferred model of consensual, lifelong monogamy--a model derived from Christian tenets and the English common law that posits the husband as provider and the wife as dependent. In early confrontations with Native Americans, emancipated slaves, Mormon polygamists, and immigrant spouses, through the invention of the New Deal, federal income tax, and welfare programs, the federal government consistently influenced the shape of marriages. And even the immense social and legal changes of the last third of the twentieth century have not unraveled official reliance on marriage as a "pillar of the state." 
 By excluding some kinds of marriages and encouraging others, marital policies have helped to sculpt the nation's citizenry, as well as its moral and social standards, and have directly affected national understandings of gender roles and racial difference. Public Vows is a panoramic view of marriage's political history, revealing the national government's profound role in our most private of choices. No one who reads this book will think of marriage in the same way again.

Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation

Self-Help

Relationships

Harvard University Press

We commonly think of marriage as a private matter between two people, a personal expression of love and commitment. In this pioneering history, Nancy F. Cott demonstrates that marriage is and always has been a public institution.
From the founding of the United States to the present day, imperatives about the necessity of marriage and its proper form have been deeply embedded in national policy, law, and political rhetoric. Legislators and judges have envisioned and enforced their preferred model of consensual, lifelong monogamy--a model derived from Christian tenets and the English common law that posits the husband as provider and the wife as dependent.In early confrontations with Native Americans, emancipated slaves, Mormon polygamists, and immigrant spouses, through the invention of the New Deal, federal income tax, and welfare programs, the federal government consistently influenced the shape of marriages. And even the immense social and legal changes of the last third of the twentieth century have not unraveled official reliance on marriage as a "pillar of the state."
By excluding some kinds of marriages and encouraging others, marital policies have helped to sculpt the nation's citizenry, as well as its moral and social standards, and have directly affected national understandings of gender roles and racial difference. Public Vows is a panoramic view of marriage's political history, revealing the national government's profound role in our most private of choices. No one who reads this book will think of marriage in the same way again.

From a Harvard historian, this riveting portrait of four trailblazing American journalists highlights the power of the press in the interwar period. In the fragile peace following the Great War, a surprising number of restless young Americans abandoned their homes and set out impulsively to see the changing world. In Fighting Words, Nancy F. Cott follows four who pursued global news -- from contested Palestine to revolutionary China, from Stalin's Moscow to Hitler's Berlin. As foreign correspondents, they became players in international politics and shaped Americans' awareness of critical interwar crises, the spreading menace of European fascism, and the likelihood of a new war -- while living romantic and sexual lives as modern and as hazardous as their journalism. An indelible portrayal of a tumultuous era with resonance for our own, Fighting Words is essential reading on the power of the press and the growth of an American sense of international responsibility.

Fighting Words: The Bold American Journalists Who Brought the World Home Between the Wars

Historical

Basic Books

This thoroughly revised edition of the classic text in American women's social history contains about twenty selections from the original volume and almost sixty new ones. Presenting a diverse collection of documents, it reaches from the colonial era through the nineteenth century, and focuses on six dominant themes: women's work, the power of gender, the physical body, women's collective efforts, diversity and conflict among women, and women's relation to state authority.

Root of Bitterness: Documents of the Social History of American Women

Northeastern Univ Pr

Format Paperback Subject Computers the Internet Programming Languages Publisher ACLS History E Book Project

A Heritage of Her Own: Toward a New Social History of American Women (Acls History E-book Project Reprint Series)

Computers & Technology

Programming Languages

ACLS Humanities E-Book

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cott, Nancy F.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Cott, Nancy F.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cott, Nancy F.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Grounding of Modern Feminism

A Woman Making History: Mary Ritter Beard Through Her Letters

The Bonds of Womanhood: "Woman's Sphere" in New England, 1780-1835 (Veritas Paperbacks)

What is feminism?

A Heritage of Her Own: Toward a New Social History of American Women (A Touchstone Book)

Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation

Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation

Fighting Words: The Bold American Journalists Who Brought the World Home Between the Wars

Root of Bitterness: Documents of the Social History of American Women

A Heritage of Her Own: Toward a New Social History of American Women (Acls History E-book Project Reprint Series)