Conference on Women in the Progressive Era

On Friday, March 11, more than 150 scholars convened in Washington, DC to attend a two-day conference on Women in the Progressive Era. Cosponsored by the American Historical Association and the Na­tional Museum of American History, and developed and organized by Noralee Fran­kel, assistant director on women and minor­ity interests, of the AHA, this conference brought together for the first time scholars exploring and discussing women’s contribu­tions and activities during the Progressive Era.

An opening session Thursday evening at the National Museum of American History’s Carmichael Auditorium successfully launched the conference. Following welcoming remarks by James B. Gardner, Deputy Executive Director of the American Histori­cal Association, and Roger Kennedy, Direc­tor of the National Museum of American History, William Chafe spoke on the need to construct a new theoretical paradigm in con­sidering women and Progressivism, and Ka­ren Offen presented a Europeanist’s per­spective on the reform contributions and activities of American women during the Progressive Era. Later, guests were treated to Victorian desserts and a temperate fruit punch, in keeping with the theme of the conference.

Friday morning’s plenary session ad­dressed “Women, Families, and Domestic Life in Urban America” and featured Eileen Boris and Peter Bardaglio’s paper “Recon­structing the Family: Women, Progressive Reform, and the Problem of Social Control”; Nancy Schrom Dye’s “Reform at the Grass­roots: Women, Family, and Community in the Progressive Era”; Elizabeth Clark-Lewis’s “‘This Work Had A’ End’: African-Ameri­can Women and Migration in Washington, DC, 1900-1920”: and Judith E. Smith’s “Be­hind Tenement Walls: Immigration Patterns of Family, Kinship, and Community in American Industrial Cities, 1880-1920.”

Papers by Allen F. Davis on “Women and Municipal Reform”; by Nancy A. Hewitt on “Social Housekeeping versus Communal Housekeeping: Domestic Modes and Wom­en’s Activism in Tampa’s Anglo, Black, and Latin Neighborhoods”; by Jack S. Blocker, Jr. on “Temperance Women, Home Protec­tion, and Women’s Rights, 1873-1933,” and by Rosalyn Terborg-Penn on “Black Wom­en’s Networks in the Anti-Lynching Cru­sade” were presented in an early afternoon panel on “Domestic Values and Grassroots Political Activity.” In a concurrent panel on education, Mary Frederickson discussed “De­mocracy in Education: Women Workers and the YWCA”; Sally Schwager explored “Women’s Educational Reform, Higher Edu­cation, and the Progressive Agenda”; and Elsa Barkley Brown spoke on “Educating Southern Black Women: Hartshorn Memori­al and Spelman Colleges, 1881-1930.”

Participants reconvened for a late after­noon session on “Women and Their Work­ing Environment,” during which Alice Kessler-Harris spoke on “Law and a Living: Women’s Changing Work Experience”; Sharon Harley delivered ‘When Your Work is Not Who You Are’: The Development of a Working-Class Consciousness among Afro­ American Women”; and Ardis Cameron presented ‘Landscapes of Subterfuge’: Working­ Class Neighborhoods and Immigrant Women.” Lively question and answer periods followed each session.

The second day of the conference opened with a single session titled “Women and the State.” Topics included “Mothers, Child Wel­fare, and the State: Women and the Chil­dren’s Bureau” by Molly Ladd-Taylor; “Women as Americanizers and as American­ized” by John F. McClymer; “The Women’s Legacy in the Construction of the Welfare State, 1890-1945” by Linda Gordon; and “Atlanta’s Black Women’s Attack on Segrega­tion, 1900-1920,” by Jacqueline Rouse.

The afternoon’s opening  panels were again split into two sessions. At the panel titled “Women’s Networks and Political Pow­ er,” Kathryn Kish Sklar spoke on “The Social Settlement Movement as a Source of Wom­en’s Political Power”; Karen Blair discussed “Women’s Networks and Sources of Female Political Power”; and Bettye Collier-Thomas addressed “Black Women’s Clubs in the Pro­gressive Era.” During the session on “Women and the Professionalization of Reform,” Dan­iel J. Walkowitz presented “Professionalizing Social Workers: The Social and Ideological Reconstruction of Women’s Work”; Barbara Sicherman explored “Gender, Professional­ ism, and Reform: Science and Service in the Career of Alice Hamilton”; and Sarah Stage spoke on the “Home Economics Movement: Women and the Progressive Impulse.”

The final session, “Women and the Politi­cal Process,” introduced work by Michael McGeer on “Men, Women and Politics: The Transformation of Political Style, 1880- 1930”; by Blanche Wiesen Cook on “Peace, Politics, and the Power of Love: The New Woman Was a Progressive Woman”; and by Ellen C. DuBois on “The Transformation of the Woman’s Suffrage Movement in the Pro­gressive Era.” Susan Tank Lesser’s paper “Picturing the Issues: Women and the Politi­cal Iconography of Reform,” and Edith Mayo’s “Motherhood, Madonnas, and Social Ministry: The Political Culture of Women Suffrage” concluded an exciting and thought-provoking weekend. A book con­taining many of these essays from the confer­ence will be edited Nancy S. Dye and Noralee Frankel and published by the University of Kentucky Press.

The conference and opening reception were funded by the Division of Research Programs of the National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent federal agency, The Rockefeller Foundation, and the Smithsonian Institution’s Office of Fel­lowships and Grants.