White Women's Rights: The Racial Origins of Feminism in the United StatesOxford University Press, 1999 M02 4 - 272 pages This study reinterprets a crucial period (1870s-1920s) in the history of women's rights, focusing attention on a core contradiction at the heart of early feminist theory. At a time when white elites were concerned with imperialist projects and civilizing missions, progressive white women developed an explicit racial ideology to promote their cause, defending patriarchy for "primitives" while calling for its elimination among the "civilized." By exploring how progressive white women at the turn of the century laid the intellectual groundwork for the feminist social movements that followed, Louise Michele Newman speaks directly to contemporary debates about the effect of race on current feminist scholarship. "White Women's Rights is an important book. It is a fascinating and informative account of the numerous and complex ties which bound feminist thought to the practices and ideas which shaped and gave meaning to America as a racialized society. A compelling read, it moves very gracefully between the general history of the feminist movement and the particular histories of individual women."--Hazel Carby, Yale University |
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Page 8
... native land . ” 20 Such reasoning made it possible for white women to overlook the ways in which white culture was implicated within the systems of oppression that governed the lives of nonwhite women . White women often scapegoated the ...
... native land . ” 20 Such reasoning made it possible for white women to overlook the ways in which white culture was implicated within the systems of oppression that governed the lives of nonwhite women . White women often scapegoated the ...
Page 9
... Native American ) women in their own cultures . But evolutionist dis- courses called into question the status of black women , who had to devote their ef- forts to proving that blacks were as civilized as whites . In sum , evolutionist ...
... Native American ) women in their own cultures . But evolutionist dis- courses called into question the status of black women , who had to devote their ef- forts to proving that blacks were as civilized as whites . In sum , evolutionist ...
Page 12
... native homelands before emigrating to the United States , had proven their capacity for " Americanization , " but what about the Irish and Italian Catholics , or East Euro- pean Jews ? Were Africans , Indians , Filipinos , and Chinese ...
... native homelands before emigrating to the United States , had proven their capacity for " Americanization , " but what about the Irish and Italian Catholics , or East Euro- pean Jews ? Were Africans , Indians , Filipinos , and Chinese ...
Page 14
... native - born and immigrant , Anglo , European , African , and Indian . Although political reconstruction of the South formally ended in 1877 , the North remained focused on the " Southern Question ” and worried that the South might ...
... native - born and immigrant , Anglo , European , African , and Indian . Although political reconstruction of the South formally ended in 1877 , the North remained focused on the " Southern Question ” and worried that the South might ...
Page 21
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Abolitionism abolitionist African African Americans Alice Fletcher Anglo-Saxon Anthony anthropology antisuffrage antisuffragists argued assimilation Bederman Beecher biological black women Boston Catharine Beecher Charlotte Perkins Gilman Chicago Chinese Christian cited Clarke's Coolidge discourse Dodge domestic economic Elizabeth Cady Stanton enfranchisement equality evolution evolutionary evolutionist theories female Feminism feminist Frances Willard French-Sheldon History ideology immigration imperialism inferior Journal Julia Ward labor legislation male Manliness & Civilization Margaret Mead Mary Abigail Dodge Mary Roberts Smith Mead's missionary moral National Native Negro nineteenth century Papatutai patriarchal political Popular Science Monthly protection race racial progress racism reformers Roberts Smith role Ross Separate Spheres Sex in Education sexual differences Shaler social Sociology Southern Workman suffragists Sultan to Sultan superiority Susan temperance tion traits United University Press Victorian Ward Western white elites white middle-class white racial white suffragists white women Willard woman question Woman Suffrage woman's movement woman's rights woman's sphere womanhood wrote York