Assignment:
PRIM. C.P. Gilman, Women and
Economics [Binder: Primary]
SEC. McGerr, Michael "Political Style and Women's Power 1830-1930,"
Journal of American History 77 (Dec. 1990): 864-85 [Binder:Sec]
Cott, "What's in a Name?"[on social feminism], Journal of American History 76
(1989): 809-29 [Binder: Sec.]
Berkin, C."Charlotte P. Gilman," in Portraits of American Women ,
ed. Barker-Benfield and C. Clinton [Binder: Sec]
REC.Carl Degler, At Odds, chs. 14-15
Sara Evans, Born for Liberty
, ch. 7
William O'Neill, Everyone Was
Brave (1969), chs. 1-5
Nancy Cott, Grounding of Modern
Feminism, chs. 1-2
Aileen Kraditor, Ideas of the Woman's
Suffrage Movement (1965)
*introduction.
1. This week
will cover three varieties of feminism in the progressive era,
keeping in mind that all such labels are arbitrary and hence
problematic.
(a) "social Feminism". Term coined O'Neill
Everyone Was Brave
Association of Collegiate Alumni (1882)
General Federation of Women's Clubs (1969)
Social Settlements
National Consumer's League (1st NYC 1890)
National Women's Trade Union League (1903)
WCTU - Anti-saloon League
(b) suffragism
(i) 1869 15th amendment battle causes split: (a)National Women's
Suffrage Assn. : Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Stanton); (b) American
Women Suffrage Assn. (Henry W. Beecher, Lucy Stone)
(ii) 1890 National Association of Women's Suffrage NAWSA; President
Stanton (to 1892); Anthony (1900-d.1906); Carrie C. Catt (1906-)
(iii) Congressional Union [CU] 1914- . Later the Women's Party
(c) radical ("hard-core") feminism [note: the terminology here is
less precise than in recent history where a sharper distinction is
drawn between "radical" and "socialist"]
M. Carey Thomas
(1857-1935) (Martha Carey) b. Baltimore, Md., Jan. 2, 1857, d. Dec.
2, 1935
Emma Goldman
(1869-1940)
Crystal Eastman (1991-1928)
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins, b. July 3, 1860, d. Aug. 17, 1935
*HISTORIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: discuss ways in
which this threefold division corresponds to 3-fold pattern we noted
in progressivism generally, whether conceived in the "pluralist"
coalition model (Buenker) or the "languages" approach
(Rodgers)
1. informal, voluntary association =
language of community
2. politics (when informal appears
inadequate). Language of "individual rights" and anti(male)
monopoly).
3. efficiency --liberation (cf. Taylor on
the one hand, and Bourne on the other. This parallel to be developed
especially for CP Gilman.
2. To put in perspective, look at progressive era feminism in context of successive
waves of organized feminism in U.S. history. (Discuss strengths and
limits of following conceptualization:
a. First" : 1830s-1869 (Seneca Falls 1848, 15th amendment 1869).
Legal with secondary emphasis political (suffrage)
b. second 1890-1918 (formation of National Women's Suffrage
Association [NAWSA) to 19th Amendment. Primarily political with some
emphasis on economic (Gilman, Women and
Economics)
c. Third 1961-present; economic (to increasingly emphasis on social/
cultural. "Liberal" feminism of ca, 1961-68 emphasized economic
rights; "radical" introduced cultural elements 1968-1970s, with
variations in "socialist" "psychoanalytic" and other versions of
feminism into the 1980s. (see file Feminism. 1920- in this folder for
detailed outline of varieties of feminism over the past two
decades)
3. Any such conceptualization raises the
question how to define "feminism."
a. earlier drew distinction between "women's rights" and "feminism."
According to Nancy Cott, The grounding of
American Feminism the later terms did not
come into use until the 1910s. But during the 1960s this distinction
broke down as feminism was the term appropriated by those espousing
positions across the political spectrum: "liberal," "Radical;,"
"socialist," "Marxists," "psychoanalytic" feminism etc.
b Cott, "What's in a Name?", Journal of
American History 76 (1989): 809-29 suggests some of the problems and a way
out.
(i) problem is that organizations often overlapped
(ii) thus us should distinguish "feminist" (critique of male
supremacy and determination to change it); from "female" (socially
constructed out of common tasks) and "communal" (activity based on a
solidarity with a race, class, or other group).
I. Changing conditions for women
1890-1920. (Review of factors already
discussed in the course). In light of changing patterns of work,
education, marriage-family-divorce, reproduction etc. would you say
that the women's movement of the progressive era was a response to
worsening conditions, improved conditions or some combination
thereof? Cf. recent decades
*explore what Sara Evans, Born for
Liberty p.
162 calls "paradoxes of modernity": "The power of scientific thought,
bureaucratic organization, and professional expertise--all key
signals of modernity--may have liberated individuals but it also
corroded communal bonds and voluntary association. This paradox
changed the meaning of many "achievements' and 'advances' won by
women during the years at the turn of the century, empowering
individuals while undermining the sources of female solidarity."
a. employment
(I) middle class women
(ii) working class [review Peiss argument)
b. education : explore opportunity/limits as evidenced in Addams,
"Gibson Girl" (Gordon)
c. sexual revolution
d. consumerism
**examination of Ida Harper document [to be distributed in class]
II. "Social Feminism." What is "social
feminism" (O'Neill) and what has it to do with feminism? Were all the
groups O'Neill lists as "social feminist" actually "feminist" by
Cott's definition (e.g. Jane Addams). Was the entire movement based
on assumptions of woman's spirituality and special virtues, that
ultimately played it false? What were its accomplishments (see notes
on Lemons, Woman Citizen below )
III. Suffragism
* Questions
a. Was the decision to narrow women's demands to the vote a
reflection of nativist and anti-working class sentiments on the part
of the woman's movement (Kraditor)?
b. Or did it in an important sense represent a new, and potentially
radical recognition of woman's "individuality" (Dubois, Degler);
or
c. should we examine not the substance but the style of suffragist
agitation Detailed analysis of McGerr, Michael "Political Style and
Women's Power 1830-1930," Journal of
American History 77 (Dec. 1990): 864-85
[Binder:Sec]
d. what were the consequences of obtaining the suffrage. Cf. Alpern,
s. and Baum, D. "Female Ballots and the Import of the 19th
Amendment," J. Interdisciplinary History
16 (s. 1985): 43-67; and Kleppner, Paul.
"Were Women to Blame? Female Suffrage and Voter
Turnout, J. Interdisciplinary History
12 (1982), 621-643.
IV. Radical (socialist)
feminism
A. Charlotte P. Gilman
V. WWI , and the Decline of Feminism
1920-1940s
*considerable disagreement on how much, let alone why.
(i) Through the 1960s, most historians argued (or assumed) that the
grant of the vote not only failed to produce promised changes, but
signalled the end of pre-war agitation for women's rights. William
O'Neill's verdict in Everyone Was
Brave summed up the case: "The struggle
for woman's rights ended during the 1920s, leaving men in clear
possession of the commanding places in American life."[1]
(ii) In The Woman Citizen (1973), J. Stanley Lemons insisted that "social feminism"
was and remained a vital force, finally providing a link between
progressivism and the New Deal. "If. . . feminism 'failed," Lemons
wrote, "the tombstone will have to bear another date, perhaps the
1930s or 1940s."[2]
Pushing this date forward, Susan Ware in Beyond the New Deal (1981)
identified a network of women who, if not active in fighting for
feminist issues during the 1930s, played an important role in shaping
and implementing New Deal programs.
(iii) Adding an important twist to this debate, Nancy Cott in
The Grounding of Modern
Feminism (1987)
*thesis has several parts
a. the term "feminism" in fact first came into general use in the
1910s, just as the phrase "the woman movement" was starting to sound
archaic if not downright ungrammatical. This shift proved crucial.
Although narrower in its appeal, feminism was "broader in intent"
than suffragism or the movement for women's rights in that it
proclaimed "revolution in all the relations of the sexes." This new
consciousness embodied paradoxes that were relatively invisible in
the earlier struggles: sexual equality with sex differences; individual
freedoms to be gained and enjoyed through sexual solidarity;
diversity among woman and a recognition of a basic unity. But its very existence
revealed the beginning of a new era, not simply the end of an
old.[3]
b. the "feminism" managed to combine (harmonize) the paradox of
individual rights and group solidarity. This "feminism" has
socialist/labor connections as well as a sense of personal/sexual
fulfillment. Politically it was helped by the growing importance of
the "interest group" which saw the vote (individual) as helping the
group.
c. During the 1910s, the Congressional Union and Women's Party
"provided organizational outlet for feminist suffragists"
d. But the National Women's Party (Alice Paul) again narrowed the
focus, focusing organizationally on equal rights, [and thus broke]
feminist connections with sexual rights and social revolution, and
replaced Feminism's attack on gender categories with insistence on
legal equality.
(iv) Two other historians have argued further that organized feminism
remained a vital force, if diminished in numbers, through the 1950s.
See Rupp, Leila J. and Taylor, Verta.
Survival in the Doldrums: The American Women's Rights Movement, 1945
to the 1960s. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1987.
**If the Mark Twain-like death of feminism was thus "greatly
exaggerated," there remains a need to explain why prewar hopes were
not fulfilled during the twenties and thirties, even if the old
impulses took new forms or sought new channels. Although no single
explanation will suffice, several at least remain arguable
A. Flapperism.
Prewar feminists, instead of attacking prevailing definitions of
femininity, traded on and hence strengthened these stereotypes,
ironically paving the way for the "flapper" whose lifestyle they
probably disapproved, and eventually for the "feminine mystique" of
the forties and fifties.
* discuss with reference to argument of Ehrenreich Hearts of Men.
B. Ethnicity and class cut against
gender, not only by alienating middleclass
WASP activists from potential allies among working women and new
immigrants,[4] but
in being more important than gender to would-be feminists among the
children of these immigrants
C.
Professionalization/Bureaucratization.
1. Statistics. In terms of numbers, the picture was one of increasing
opportunity through the early twenties, followed by gradual decline
thereafter, precisely the time the generation of 1900 was coming of
age. By the early 1930s, as William Chafe noted in American Women , journalists
were sounding an obituary for the "vanishing race of pioneer women"
of the prewar years. In her discussion of the issue, Nancy Cott has
detailed this decline. The percentage of employed women classified as
professional rose from 8.2% in 1900 to 14.2% in 1930. The group of
"professional and kindred" workers was 40% female when the total work
force was only 20% female. But these figures as stated are
misleading. Three-fourths of the increase in female professionals
before 1920 was the result of the expansion of teaching and nursing.
the traditional male professions, especially after 1920, witnessed
set-backs for women in varying proportions. In academia, for example,
women made up 30% of college faculties by the 1910s (many, of course,
in women's colleges). But by the late 1920s, virtually every index of
female participation was down: the proportion of women students, of
Ph.D.s, and of faculty members. "[The] high point in woman's share of
professional employment (and attainment of advanced degrees) overall
occurred by the late 1920s, and was followed by stasis and/or decline
not reversed to any extent until the 1960s and 1970s., " Cott
concluded. "[5]
2. The effects of professionalization.
Although more difficult to gauge, are
also generally agreed to have worked against feminist activism. In
The Woman Citizen , Lemons wrote: "One marked effect of the developing
professionalism among women was a decline in social concern and an
increase in narrowly professional issues." An apparent exception was
the support professional women gave to the E.R.A.--apparent, because
this support was out of self-interest and bred a split within the
woman's movement that persisted for decades.[6]
Without supporting this interpretation, Cott added that the suffrage
movement "temporarily masked the ongoing trend for women in
professions to dissociate their vocational aims from aims of women as
a group." The professional "angle of vision" was thus
"counterproductive to feminist practice." But, she added, since
individual success in a career was one aim of the woman's rights
crusade, the question remains whether this development should be seen
as the fulfillment or exhaustion of feminism. [7]
Far less explored is the related issue of what attracted women to the
professions. Money, prestige, and the promise of doing useful
work--the same things that attracted men --are obvious if only
partial answers. Another is the fact that entry into the professions
typically required neither extensive capital (as in business) or
public clout through the the vote (as in politics). Finally, as Cott
again has noted, the professional emphasis on reason, scientific
standards, and objectivity "constituted an alternative to
subjectively determined sex standards." [8]
3. Bureaucratization compounds. scientific objectivity
translated into group research, financed by large, bureaucratically
organized foundations, could women social scientists function as
effectively as in the age of individual scholarship, even those who
chose to compete?
Note: on
interrelationship. Speculate on relation between ethnicity,
professionalization, and bureaucratization.
D. Intellectual Climate
E. Depression Backlash.Women were victimized by a backlash that was often
strongest in the area where they had made the greatest gains, a
backlash that assumed epidemic proportions during the Depression of
the thirties.[9]
Notes
1. O'Neill, Everyone Was Brave p. vii.
2. Stanley Lemons, The Woman Citizen
(Urbana, Ill. , 1973) ,p. vii.
3. Nancy Cott, The Grounding of Modern
Feminism
(New Haven, 1987), ch. 1.
4. Aileen Kraditor, The Ideas of the
Womans' Suffrage Movement (New York,
1965).
5. Cott, Grounding, pp. 218, 220.
6. Lemons, The Woman Citizen
, pp. 41, 199-205.
7. Cott, Grounding, pp. 233, 237, 239.
8. Cott, Grounding, p. 216.
9. For example, Lemons, The Woman
Citizen, ch. 9.