White Women's Rights: The Racial Origins of Feminism in the United States (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780195086928)

This study reinterprets a crucial period (1870s-1920s) in the history of women's rights, focusing attention on a core contradiction at the heart of early feminist theory. At a time when white elites were concerned with imperialist projects and civilizing missions, progressive white women developed an explicit racial ideology to promote their cause, defending patriarchy for "primitives" while calling for its elimination among the "civilized." By exploring how progressive white women at the turn of the century laid the intellectual groundwork for the feminist social movements that followed, Louise Michele Newman speaks directly to contemporary debates about the effect of race on current feminist scholarship.

"White Women's Rights is an important book. It is a fascinating and informative account of the numerous and complex ties which bound feminist thought to the practices and ideas which shaped and gave meaning to America as a racialized society. A compelling read, it moves very gracefully between the general history of the feminist movement and the particular histories of individual women."--Hazel Carby, Yale University

Author: Louise Michele Newman
ISBN-10: 0195086929
ISBN-13: 9780195086928
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Language: English
Published: 02/04/1999
Pages: 272
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.33lbs
Size: 9.32h x 6.28w x 0.91d

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 02/15/1999 pg. 166