Battling Miss Bolsheviki : the origins of female conservatism in the United States / Kirsten Marie Delegard.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Delegard, Kirsten.

Series:

Politics and culture in modern America.

Politics and culture in modern America

Politics and Culture in Modern America

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women--Political activity--United States--History--20th century.

Women.

Conservatism--United States--History--20th century.

Conservatism.

United States--Politics and government--20th century.

United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (320 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, c2012.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Why did the political authority of well-respected female reformers diminish after women won the vote? In Battling Miss Bolsheviki Kirsten Marie Delegard argues that they were undercut during the 1920's by women conservatives who spent the first decade of female suffrage linking these reformers to radical revolutions that were raging in other parts of the world. In the decades leading up to the Nineteenth Amendment, women activists had enjoyed great success as reformers, creating a political subculture with settlement houses and women's clubs as its cornerstones. Female volunteers piloted welfare programs as philanthropic ventures and used their organizations to pressure state, local, and national governments to assume responsibility for these programs. These female activists perceived their efforts as selfless missions necessary for the protection of their homes, families, and children. In seeking to fulfill their "maternal" responsibilities, progressive women fundamentally altered the scope of the American state, recasting the welfare of mothers and children as an issue for public policy. At the same time, they carved out a new niche for women in the public sphere, allowing female activists to become respected authorities on questions of social welfare. Yet in the aftermath of the suffrage amendment, the influence of women reformers plummeted and the new social order once envisioned by progressives appeared only more remote. Battling Miss Bolsheviki chronicles the ways women conservatives laid siege to this world of female reform, placing once-respected reformers beyond the pale of political respectability and forcing most women's clubs to jettison advocacy for social welfare measures. Overlooked by historians, these new activists turned the Daughters of the American Revolution and the American Legion Auxiliary into vehicles for conservative political activism. Inspired by their twin desires to fulfill their new duties as voting citizens and prevent North American Bolsheviks from duplicating the success their comrades had enjoyed in Russia, they created a new political subculture for women activists. In a compelling narrative, Delegard reveals how the antiradicalism movement reshaped the terrain of women's politics, analyzing its enduring legacy for all female activists for the rest of the twentieth century and beyond.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1. The Birth of "Miss Bolsheviki": Women, Gender, and the Red Scare

Chapter 2. The Origins of the Spider Web Chart: Women and the Construction of the Bolshevik Threat

Chapter 3. "It Takes Women to Fight Women": The Emergence of Female Antiradicalism

Chapter 4. Stopping the "Revolution by Legislation": Antiradicals Unite Against Social Welfare Reform

Chapter 5. The "Red Menace" Roils the Grass Roots: The Conservative Insurgency Reshapes Women's Organizations

Chapter 6. The Legacy of Female Antiradicalism

Epilogue: From Antiradicalism to Anticommunism

Acronyms for Archival Sources

Notes

Index

Acknowledgments

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781283896658

1283896656

9780812207163

0812207165

OCLC:

822017884