WOMAN'S WORK IN MUNICIPALITIES National Municipal League Series
Beard, Mary Ritter.
New York and London: D. Appleton and Company, 1915. First edition. The first book by this influential historian. 8vo, xi, 344pp; (including Index); thin vertically-ribbed navy blue cloth, thin blank rules at the front cover; title, author; series' title and publisher's imprint in gold at the spine. Mild touches of foxing to endpapers, first pages and edges. Light overall use to binding. About very good. Preface by Mary Ritter Beard and Introduction by Clinton Rogers Woodruff. Contents: Education; Public Health; The Social Evil; Recreation; The Assimilation of Races; Housing; Social Services; Corrections; Public Safety; Civic Improvement; and, Government and Administration. The National Municipal League arose out of the Progressive Movement and its focus on urban reform. Formed when the City Club of New York and the Municipal League of Philadelphia acted in concert to establish a nationwide organization, the National Municipal League, through its first two decades, held conventions, published a quarterly magazine and sponsored a series of books by Herman G. James, Robert E. Cushman, and Clinton R. Woodruff, among others, on various aspects of the city. Mary Ritter Beard (1876-1958), historian, suffragist and women's advocate, records in WOMAN'S WORK IN MUNICIPALITIES how much women succeeded in doing, and how involved civic work, even lacking suffrage. Exposure to the vigorous British woman suffrage campaign and to the struggles of working-class women aroused in her a firm commitment to women's issues. She was active in the Women's Trade Union League and their support of the 1909 shirtwaist makers' strike. She became an organizer and fundraiser for the Woman Suffrage Party, editing THE WOMAN VOTER; and, when Alice Paul formed her more radical Woman's Party, Ritter allied herself with this more aggressive woman suffrage advocate. Her first title reflects goals as an historian which would shape her remarkable career. Historians, male historians, often neglected women and she meant to redress that neglect. While women's rights advocates portrayed women as victims of male prejudice, Beard wanted to portray women as far more powerful and effective than either men or women often appreciated. She points out the very myriad of organizations through which women approached civic and municipal issues posed its own kind of challenge to the historian. The issues which with the women wrestled range from school lunches to homes for working women to the teaching of sex hygiene; in short, there was no aspect of urban life which did not involve women and the various settlement houses and other organizations they formed. Beard argued for the inclusion of women in histories, the preservation of documents related to women, and, ultimately, her advocacy and stature would help spur the creation of women's studies as a serious academic discipline. The book marks a debut which would have significant impact. Sicherman and Green (eds.), NOTABLE AMERICAN WOMEN The Modern Period, pp. 71-73. (Item ID: 14968)
$125.00
