Women and Reform in a New England Community, 1815-1860

by Carolyn J. Lawes

Overview

As part of the ongoing reevaluation of the prehistory of the women's movement, Carolyn Lawes analyzes the organized social activism of the mostly middle-class, urban, white women of Worcester, Massachusetts, and finds that they were at the center of community life and leadership. Neither frontier nor densely urban, Worcester encountered the stresses common to so many communities in the Northeast during the first half of the nineteenth century. It was also the site of the first two national women's rights conventions in the 1850s.

Arguing against the long-accepted paradigm of separate public and private spheres for women's lives, Lawes defines and describes what women were able to do and why, and seeks to reinterpret American women's history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813184012
Publisher:	University Press of Kentucky
Publication date:	10/21/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	ix
	Introduction	1
1	Keeping the Faith: Women's Leadership in an Orthodox Congregational Church	9
2	Missionaries and More: Women, Sewing, and the Antebellum Sewing Circle	45
3	Maternal Politics: Gender and the Formation of the Worcester Children's Friend Society	83
4	"Rachel Weeping for Her Children": Mothers, Children, and the Antebellum Foster Family	113
5	From Feminism to Female Employment: Organized Women in Worcester in the 1850s	161
	Conclusion	181
Appendix	Statistical Data	185
	Notes	189
	Bibliography	237
	Index	259

Editorial Reviews

Thoroughly researched and sensitively interpreted.... Writing with verve and style, Lawes vivifies antebellum Worcester women.

Anne M. Boylan

Should be read by all who are interested in early American women's history, especially those interested in women and poverty.

Journal of the Early Republic

An insightful contribution to women's history which argues that gendered interests characterized women's activism and united women across class, religious, and (sometimes) racial boundaries in antebellum communities.

H-Net Reviews

Fine research into the gendered nuances of social activism in the antebellum period.

Deborah Van Brockhoven

Lawes easily demonstrates [Worcester, Massachusetts's] suitability as a test case for challenging some widely accepted generalizations about women's roles in antebellum New York and New England.

Connecticut History

In this sensitively interpreted book, Lawes provides prospective on women's role in shaping New England's religious, charitable, and reform movements.

Educational Book Review

A model social history that amply demonstrates the complex interplay between women's domestic and civic work and the socioeconomic conditions of their time.

H-Net Book Review

A well-written and persuasively argued contribution to women's history in antebellum America.

New England Quarterly

An important book that enhances our understanding of women's lived experiences in antebellum New England.

History of Education Quarterly

Able to show the way in which women's groups that are not generally seen as having a high degree of political consciousness or agitating for social change did in fact contain elements of both.

American Historical Review

Interesting, informative, and accessible.

Choice

Argues the case for antebellum women's public influence and cross-class gender solidarity.

Journal of American History

"Able to show the way in which women's groups that are not generally seen as having a high degree of political consciousness or agitating for social change did in fact contain elements of both." — American Historical Review

"Thoroughly researched and sensitively interpreted.... Writing with verve and style, Lawes vivifies antebellum Worcester women." — Anne M. Boylan

"Interesting, informative, and accessible." — Choice

"Lawes easily demonstrates [Worcester, Massachusetts's] suitability as a test case for challenging some widely accepted generalizations about women's roles in antebellum New York and New England." — Connecticut History

"Fine research into the gendered nuances of social activism in the antebellum period." — Deborah Van Brockhoven

"In this sensitively interpreted book, Lawes provides prospective on women's role in shaping New England's religious, charitable, and reform movements." — Educational Book Review

"An important book that enhances our understanding of women's lived experiences in antebellum New England." — History of Education Quarterly

"A model social history that amply demonstrates the complex interplay between women's domestic and civic work and the socioeconomic conditions of their time." — H-Net Book Review

"An insightful contribution to women's history which argues that gendered interests characterized women's activism and united women across class, religious, and (sometimes) racial boundaries in antebellum communities." — H-Net Reviews

"Argues the case for antebellum women's public influence and cross-class gender solidarity." — Journal of American History

"Should be read by all who are interested in early American women's history, especially those interested in women and poverty." — Journal of the Early Republic

"A well-written and persuasively argued contribution to women's history in antebellum America." — New England Quarterly

From the Publisher