America's Women
Page 56
Lillian Gilbreth… Strasser, p. 213.
“Cooking has a nobler purpose…” Shapiro, p. 67.
Sarah Tyson Rorer… Shapiro, p. 75.
“Dress them, bathe them…” Dorothy Brown, p. 120.
A popular government pamphlet… Ehrenreich and English, p. 201.
Margaret Mead’s… Mead, Blackberry Winter, pp. 25–26.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman… Gilman told her own story in The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Also see chapter 5 of Dolores Hayden’s The Grand Domestic Revolution.
Inez Milholland… Paul Boyer’s profile of Milholland in Notable American Women, James and James, eds., vol. 1, p. 189.
“HAS SUCH A THING EVER HAPPENED…BEFORE?”
Except where otherwise noted, the information in this section is drawn from Dorothy and Carl Schneider’s Into the Breach: American Women Overseas in World War I.
Two thousand black nurses… Lettie Gavin, American Women in World War I, p. 59.
Addie Waites Hunton… “Two Colored Women with the AEF,” in Beyond the Homefront, Yvonne Klein, ed.
“I’m glad you…” Schneider and Schneider, pp. 170–73.
“When a group of colored…” Hunton in Klein, ed., pp. 103–7
“We have only…” Schneider and Schneider, p. 128.
Julia Stimson worked… Schneider and Schneider, p. 111.
Mary Elderkins… Schneider and Schneider, pp. 113, 116.
Jeanette Rankin of Montana… Norma Smith has written a biography of Rankin, Jeanette Rankin: America’s Conscience.
CHAPTER 14: REFORMING THE WORLD
“LIKE ALL THINGS TOO LONG POSTPONED, NOW GETS ON EVERYBODY’S NERVES”
Eleanor Flexner and Ellen Fitzpatrick’s Century of Struggle was a groundbreaker when it was first published in 1959, and it’s still one of the best and most readable books about the suffrage movement. For Stanton, read her autobiography and Elisabeth Griffith’s In Her Own Right. To go directly to the source on Anthony, see Lynn Sherr’s Failure Is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words. Geoffrey Ward has put together a lavishly illustrated book about the two women’s friendship, Not for Ourselves Alone.
“We have got…” Sherr, p. 298.
When Stanton became pregnant… Sherr, p. 4.
And Stanton complained… Goldsmith, p. 118.
the sight of Susan on the doorstep… Ellen Carol DuBois, Harriot Stanton Blatch and the Winning of Woman Suffrage, p. 20.
At her eightieth birthday… E. Griffith, p. 210.
It was a bitter… Goldsmith, p. 181.
“Mrs. Stone felt…” E. Griffith, p. 111.
“Logically, our enfranchisement…” Goldsmith, p. 435.
All the horrors… Flexner and Fitzpatrick, p. 214.
“To get the word…” Janet Zillinger Giele, Two Paths to Women’s Equality, pp. 112–13.
In 1912, Catt wrote to a friend… Flexner and Fitzpatrick, p. 264.
A former school… Eleanor Flexner has a profile of Catt in Notable American Women, James and James, ed., vol. 1, pp. 309–12. For a more lengthy study, see Robert Booth Fowler’s Carrie Catt: Feminist and Politician.
Harriot Stanton Blatch… See DuBois’s Harriot Stanton Blatch, also Flexner and Fitzpatrick, p. 243.
“Ridicule, ridicule…” Ward, p. 221.
In 1912, a parade… Adickes, pp. 6–7.
Volunteers distributed… I found these particular pieces of memorabilia at an exhibit by the Huntington Library in San Marino, CA.
Martha Farnsworth… Springer and Springer, eds., p. 209.
In 1915, Carrie Chapmen Catt… Anne Firor Scott and Andrew M. Scott, One Half the People, pp. 112–13.
Mrs. Frank Leslie… Flexner and Fitzpatrick, p. 265.
“THERE IS NO ALICE PAUL. THERE IS SUFFRAGE.”
Except where otherwise noted, the information on Paul comes from Christine Lunardini’s From Equal Suffrage to Equal Rights: Alice Paul and the National Woman’s Party. Lunardini also has a profile of Paul in Portraits of American Women, G. J. Barker-Benfield and Catherine Clinton, eds.
A magazine writer… Lunardini in Barker-Benfield and Clinton, p. 432.
Always small and frail-looking… Lunardini in Barker-Benfield and Clinton, p. 432.
He and the second… Flexner and Fitzpatrick, pp. 271–72.
“Yesterday was a bad…” Seller, p. 284.
It was a moment some men… Flexner and Fitzpatrick, p. 283.
The president then took… This section is based on Flexner and Fitzpatrick, pp. 302–15
The Tennessee House… Flexner has a good account of the drama in Tennessee, and there’s an entire book on the story, The Perfect 36 by Carol Lynn Yellin and Janann Sherman.
“BELIEVE…AT LEAST FOR THE TIME BEING,
IN THE SYMPATHY OF WOMEN”
The story of the fight for suffrage from the African American woman’s point of view is recounted in Rosalyn Terborg-Penn’s African American Women in the Struggle for the Vote, 1850–1920. This section is based on the information in her book.
“If the Illinois women…” Terborg-Penn, p. 122.
When the suffrage movement held its first… Terborg-Penn, p. 111.
“When women like you…” Terborg-Penn, p. 116.
Mary Turner: Terborg-Penn, p. 96.
“LIPS THAT TOUCH ALCOHOL”
An American gentleman… Andrew Barr, Drink: A Social History of America, p. 127.
A reporter from Cincinnati… Evans, Born for Liberty, p. 126.
The ultimate symbol… Paul Messbarger has a good profile of Nation in Notable American Women, James and James, eds., pp. 609–11.
In one story, a farmer… Giele, pp. 70–71.
“DO EVERYTHING”
Except where noted, this section is based on Ruth Bordin’s biography, Frances Willard.
In the 1890s, ten times… Degler, At Odds, p. 317.
Tampa alone had three… Nancy Hewitt, Southern Discomfort, Women’s Activism in Tampa, Florida, 1880s–1920s, p. 63.
In one eighty-day period… Bordin, p. 80.
Everett Hughes… Giele, p. 89.
In 1905… Bordin, p. 6.
“BEAUTIFUL WHITE GIRLS SOLD INTO RUIN”
The classic book on the way Americans have handled sex throughout the country’s history is Intimate Matters, by John D’Emilio and Estelle Freedman. I’ve relied on it throughout this book, including this section.
raising the age of sexual consent… Giele, pp. 100–106.
Dr. Prince Morrow… D’Emilio and Freedman, pp. 204–5.
One psychologist studied… Allan Brandt, No Magic Bullet: A Social History of Venereal Disease in the United States Since 1880, p. 38.
A women’s college graduate… Anonymous, “The Harm My Education Did Me,” The Outlook (November 30, 1927), pp. 396–405.
when Ladies’ Home Journal ran… Brandt, p. 24.
In 1870, St. Louis… D’Emilio and Freedman, p. 149.
One reformer noted wryly… Reed, p. 58.
“Beautiful White Girls…” D’Emilio and Freedman, p. 209.
“CAN THEY NOT USE SELF-CONTROL?
Birth control in America is the topic of a number of good books, including James Reed’s From Private Vice to Public Virtue. My favorite book on the 1800s is Jane Farrell Brodie’s Contraception and Abortion in Nineteenth-Century America. For the twentieth century, my choice would be Andrea Tone’s Devices and Desires: A History of Contraception in America, which you’ll be seeing a lot of in notes to come.
Comstock arranged for the adoption… Brodie, p. 274.
Once, when a journalist asked… Tone, p. 16.
“A bloody ending…” Tone, p. 34.
Another of his targets… D’Emilio and Freedman, p. 161.
When Comstock brought… Tone, p. 34.
But the Comstock Act did not… Schlereth, p. 274.
“WHAT EVERY GIRL SHOULD KNOW”
Margaret Sanger wrote her autobiography and there is a good biography
currently available, Ellen Chesler’s Woman of Valor. This section is based on it unless otherwise noted.
Mabel Dodge called her… Chesler, p. 96.
An observer remembered that Sanger spoke… Reed, p. 78.
“If some persons would…” Chesler, p. 127.
The New York Times discreetly refused… Chesler, p. 129.
“I opened the doors…” Margaret Sanger, An Autobiography, p. 216.
CHAPTER 15: THE TWENTIES
“FLAPPERS ARE BRAVE AND GAY AND BEAUTIFUL”
The survey book I found most useful when studying the twenties was Dorothy Brown’s Setting the Course.
Margaret Mead arrived… Mead, p. 90.
“‘Feminism’ has become a term…” Dorothy Dunbar Bromley, “Feminist—New Style,” Harper’s (October 1927).
Mead transferred… Mead, p. 102.
“Flaming youth…” Frank Gilbreth and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey, Cheaper by the Dozen, pp. 175–76.
Jane Addams said… Mary Ryan, Womanhood in America, p. 256.
A much-quoted article…The Outlook (November 30, 1927), p. 405.
“I think a woman…” Evans, Born for Liberty, pp. 175–76.
“SKINNY AND FLAT-CHESTED AND POPULAR”
A survey in Milwaukee… Gerald Leinwand, 1927, p. 174.
“That’s what’s the matter…” Gilbreth and Carey, Cheaper by the Dozen, pp. 177–79.
When the manager… Frederick Lewis Allen, Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920’s, p. 2.
In summer…The American Sexual Dilemma, William O’Neill, ed., p. 39.
The president of the University of Florida… Barr, p. 150.
“Ten years ago…” Jenna Weisman Joselit, A Perfect Fit, p. 60.
“Thanks to cosmetics…” Peiss, Hope in a Jar, p. 141.
By 1927, a survey found… Leinwand, p. 174.
Aviatrix Ruth Elder… Peiss, Hope in a Jar, p. 186.
One Ponds cold cream ad… Peiss, Hope in a Jar, pp. 137–38.
“A LOT OF LASHING AND LATHER”
A writer for… Virginia Scharff, Taking the Wheel, p. 139.
“The girl with sport…” Paula Fass, The Damned and the Beautiful, p. 307.
More women—perhaps… Reed, p. 61.
surveys of college men… Fass, p. 277.
they were only about half… Reed, p. 61.
An editor of… Woloch, p. 413.
Middle-class girls… For more about this switch in the concept of courting, see Beth Bailey’s From the Front Porch to the Back Seat.
A college friend told… Mead, p. 103.
Another of Fitzgerald’s… Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise, p. 238.
By 1920, 200 books… Dorothy Brown, p. 18.
Lysol became a popular… Harvey Green, The Uncertainty of Everyday Life, p. 132.
Germany manufactured the best… Tone, p. 126.
At Barnard, Margaret Mead… Mead, p. 104.
In 1926, a play about… Marybeth Hamilton, When I’m Bad, I’m Better, p. 98. This biography of Mae West also has some fascinating information on the way sex and gender were treated in popular entertainment during the early part of the century.
“SOAP TO MATCH HER BATHROOM’S COLOR SCHEME”
Martha Farnsworth… See Plains Woman: The Diary of Martha Farnsworth, Marlene and Haskell Springer, eds.
For the first time… Cowan, p. 87.
many women sent their clothes… Green, p. 64.
“Today’s woman gets…” Dumeril, p. 129.
the department stores spoiled… Benson, pp. 88–94.
Ready-to-wear maternity… Reed, p. 59.
“Two yellow capsules…” Dorothy Brown, p. 111.
During World War I… Weatherford, Foreign and Female, p. 26.
An early ad… The Ad Access Project, funded by the Duke Endowment Library 2000 Fund, has a collection of ads for feminine hygiene products over the years. You can access it on the Internet.
Other companies had attempted… This is from another good source of information on what women did when they got their period over history: the Museum of Menstruation.
“REACH FOR A LUCKY INSTEAD OF A SWEET”
A child of the era… Banner, p. 153.
Marmola: Leinwand, p. 223.
“When I was a boy…” Barr, p. 151.
Pauline Sabine… Barr, p. 152.
“SPLINTERED INTO A HUNDRED FRAGMENTS”
“The American women’s movement…” Dorothy Brown, p. 50.
The National American Woman Suffrage Association… Ryan, Womanhood in America, p. 254.
A man in Indiana… Allen, Only Yesterday, p. 39.
In 1920, Warren Harding’s… Collins, pp. 125–27.
“TOO MUCH PERSONALITY”
“It came with a rush”… Allen, Only Yesterday, p. 65.
By 1929, a third… Green, p. 188.
In 1925, a journalist named… Michelle Hilmes, Radio Voices, p. 130.
one much-quoted poll… Hilmes, pp. 142–43.
More than any other decade… Haskell, p. 49. Anyone interested in the period might start with Cari Beauchamp’s Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood.
Mary Pickford: My information comes from Scott Eyman’s Mary Pickford.
Theda Bara: See Eva Golden’s Vamp: The Rise and Fall of Theda Bara.
“IF I SHOULD BOP OFF, IT’LL BE DOING
THE THING THAT I’VE ALWAYS MOST WANTED”
Women had been getting… Scharff, p. 25.
“sensational cross-country run”… Scharff, p. 51.
The Motor Girls… Bobbie Ann Mason, The Girl Sleuth, p. 11. This is my chance to recommend this book, one of my all-time favorites.
Starting the early model cars… This is all based on information in Scharff. the Flying Girls… Mason, p. 14.
Early aviation was another… The rest of this section is indebted to Gene Nora Jessen’s The Powder Puff Derby, a very readable book about women’s role in early American aviation.
Bessie Coleman… There’s a profile of Bessie Coleman by Elizabeth Hadley Freydberg in Black Women in America, Hine, ed.
Amelia Earhart… Katherine Brick has an essay on Earhart in Notable American Women. For a full biography, see Susan Butler’s East to the Dawn.
SWIM GIRL, SWIM
Gertrude Ederle: Kelli Anderson, “The Young Woman and the Sea,” Sports, Illustrated (November 29, 1999), p. 90, and Paul Gallico’s The Golden People, pp. 49–65.
The older generation… The two books by Frank Gilbreth and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey are a really pleasant way to get a picture of family life in the early part of the century. Chapter 5 of Belles on their Toes has a wonderful portrait of the generational divide on bathing suits.
When the first Miss America… Banner, pp. 267–69.
“THE REASON NOBODY WILL GIVE”
This section is indebted to Jacqueline Jones’s Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow, one of the very best books on African American women in this country’s history.
In 1929… Cowan, p. 182.
A survey of black… Dorothy Brown, p. 94.
African American women of middle age… Jones, p. 193.
Addie Hunter… Jones, p. 179.
There was a sexual imbalance… Jones, p. 156.
Black wives were five times… Jones, p. 162.
Unlike immigrants, black parents… John Bodnar et al., Lives of Their Own: Blacks, Italians and Poles in Pittsburgh, 1900–1960, p. 92.
Marita Bonner… Cheryl Wall, Women in the Harlem Renaissance, p. 4.
Madame Mamie Hightower… Piess, Hope in a Jar, pp. 112–13, 117.
In 1920, Mamie Smith’s… Susan Douglas, Listening In, p. 90.
“IF I WERE BORN 100 YEARS FROM NOW, WELL AND GOOD”
“Within the space…” Leinwand, p. 49.
The proportion… William Leuchtenburg, The Perils of Prosperity, p. 159.
They made much less than men… Leinwand, p. 51.
“I pay our women…” Scharff, p. 54.
F. Scott Fitzgerald… Fitzgerald, p. 237.
Only about 10 percent… Dumeril, p. 113.
“There must be a way…” Solomon, p. 174.
CHAPTER 16: THE DEPRESSION
“ROMANCE CAN BEGIN AT THIRTY-FIVE”
When NBC radio moved… Hilmes, Radio Voices, pp. 150–51. This is my favorite book about radio in the pre-TV days.
Helen Trent’s attempt… Robert LaGuardia, From Ma Perkins to Mary Hartman: The Illustrated History of Soap Operas, p. 7.
Mary Knackstedt Dyck… Mrs. Dyck’s journals can be found in Waiting on the Bounty, Pamela Riney-Kehrberg, ed.
In October 1936… Riney-Kehrberg, ed., p. 26.
Echoing Nathaniel Hawthorne’s… Joseph Blótner, Faulkner, p. 938.
The actress who played… LaGuardia, p. 9.
“The man in the wheelchair…” James Thurber, The Beast in Me and Other Animals, p. 221.
“DOING IT YOURSELF THESE DAYS?”
Many of the voices of women in this chapter come from Studs Terkel’s great oral history, Hard Times. This is also an opportunity to put in a plug for a longtime favorite book, Domestic Revolutions: A Social History of American Family Life by Steven Mintz and Susan Kellogg.
Diana Morgan… Terkel, Hard Times, p. 181.
The writer Caroline Bird… Bird, The Invisible Scar, p. 273.
The average family income… Mintz and Kellogg, p. 134.
“endless little economies…” Susan Ware, Holding Their Own: American Women in the 1930s, p. 2.
in Indianapolis, more than half… Mintz and Kellogg, p. 135.
An ad for bleach… Cowan, p. 176.
Sally Rand… Terkel, Hard Times, pp. 198–205.
“Many a family…” Mintz and Kellogg, p. 136.
“Do you realize how…” Terkel, Hard Times, p. 447.
The birthrate plunged… Mintz and Kellogg, p. 137.
The birthrate was about… Green, p. 78.
In the 1930s, Caroline Bird… Bird, p. 289.
Lillian Wald’s… A section of Wald’s book Windows on Henry Street appears in Women of Valor, Bernard Sternsher and Judith Sealander, eds., p. 39.
“I have watched…” Woloch, p. 451.
In New York, Meridel… Meridel LeSueur, “Women on the Breadlines,”
New Masses (January 1932).
“dressed in slacks…” Green, p. 79.
“A few women…” Ben Reitman, Boxcar Bertha, p. 69.
Peggy Terry… Terkel, Hard Times, pp. 67–68.