Two Paths to Women's Equality: Temperance, Suffarage and the Origins of Modern Feminism

By Janet Zollinger Giele

Book Overview

Assesses the combined influence of temperance and suffrage on womans evolving role in American society. Traces the history of temperance and suffrage to womens involvement in missionary work, moral reform, and abolition between the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. Intensive study of the Womans Christian Temperance Union, founded in 1874, reveals what many will find to be its surprisingly wide scope of social concerns. The temperance women, often thought of in caricature as priggish, narrow-minded souls who abhorred alcohol, were largely motivated by the desire to eliminate the ill health, poverty, violence against women and children, and broken homes that resulted from its abuse. The Social Movements Past and Present Series offers thorough analyses of the ideas and actions that have changed the way Americans think and live. Each volume is written by a specialist drawing on the insights and methodologies of history, sociology, and political science.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805797009
• ISBN13: 9780805797008
• Release Date: January 1995
• Publisher: Twayne Publishers
• Length: 295 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.8" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

She gets it.

Giele is offering the best explanation going of why the suffrage movement succeeded when it did by highlighting the two strong bases for women's suffrage and showing the degree to which they diverged outside of this issue. She brings together scholarship arguing for one side of the other and convincingly argues that both were necessary to success. An important work.