Women's Activism and Social Change

Nancy A. Hewitt is Professor of History and Women's Studies at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. She is the author of Southern Discomfort: Women's Activism in Tampa, Florida, 1880s–1920s, and coauthor of Exploring American Histories: A Brief Survey with Sources.

• Introduction1. Material and Moral Progress2. A Profusion of Pathways3. From Amelioration to Perfection4. Moral Crusades and Ultraist Alternatives5. Coalitions and Confrontations6. Union or Liberty7. Never Another Season of SilenceTablesIndex

A model for future community studies and a welcome addition to women's history.(American Historical Review) Hewitt substantially advances discussion of 'women's place' and its relation to class, community, family, and feminism. Women's Activism and Social Change merits a careful reading by scholars of women's history and nineteenth-century social movements.(Journal of Interdisciplinary History) Nancy A. Hewitt's examination of women's organized activities in Rochester raises critical questions about the tendency of historians to trace a direct causal line from the earliest female benevolent activities and missionary societies through evangelical reform movements to the birth of a feminist movement in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York.... Hewitt demonstrates clearly that women of different class origins acted in ways consonant with the values of their social location, an excellent antidote to romanticized generalizations about 'women' as a group.(Contemporary Sociology) The most detailed and scholarly study we have to date of women's reform activity at a local level. It is thoroughly researched, carefully organized, and well written... and provides a solid, insightful, and indispensable benchmark against which to measure future scholarship.(Public Historian) Hewitt demonstrates clearly that women of different class origins acted in ways consonant with the values of their social location, an excellent antidote to romanticized generalizations about 'women' as a group.(Contemporary Sociology)