Public Women: Vol 2

This volume documents the multiple achievements of U.S. feminism in the early-twentieth century -- a high point of the women's movement -- as well as the oft-forgotten continuation of activism through the century's middle decades. First considered is the emergence of the word feminism and its various and competing definitions, theories, and practices, including the use of the term by pre-World War I Greenwich Village radicals to crystallize their countercultural impulses. Also examined is the "Public Housekeeping" movement; essays and speeches by Jan Addams, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and others chart a course for re-organizing civil society by way of women's cooperative values derived from the domestic sphere. An important subject of the second volume is the culmination of the fight for woman's suffrage; this extensive section pays special attention to issues of race, class, regional, and organizational difference leading up to the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendmer Documentation of women's widespread efforts to extend political and social power after suffrage is a distinct contribution this volume. The Woman's Party and other political organizations are represented, but focus during the mid-century period is on trade unionism, socialism, and, in general, the struggle improve women's work. Also highlighted is feminist pacifism women's attempts to affect the military-industrial complex during a century of genocide and total war.