England in the nineteenth century became a predominantly middle-class society, with new opportunities for men, but new social and economic restrictions on "respectable" women. This book describes the emergence of exceptional women from their assigned domestic sphere to positions of public leadership, and finally to the cause of women's rights. Evangelical women in John Wesley's time preached publicly, but after his death were banished from the pulpits of mainstream Methodism. Other women, particularly Quakers, were soon heard in the anti-slavery movements and other reform causes of the 1820s, 30s, and 40s. In the middle of the century opposition to women entering public life was at its greatest. But some pathfinding women emboldened others by their leadership in the reforming missions and the revival campaigns of the 1850s, 60s, and 70s, especially within the temperance movement. By the last quarter of the century talented women were learning "unwomanly" skills of political leadership, particularly mastery of the public platform. In a succession of national women's organizations they applied the lessons learnt to women's issues, preparing for the final assault on "the key to all reform", women's suffrage. At the century's end the walls that had so long excluded women from public life were beginning to crumble.

Interpretations of women in the antebellum period have long dwelt upon the notion of public versus private gender spheres. As part of the ongoing reevaluation of the prehistory of the women's movement, Carolyn Lawes challenges this paradigm and the primacy of class motivation. She studies the women of antebellum Worcester, Massachusetts, discovering that whatever their economic background, women there publicly worked to remake and improve their community in their own image. Lawes analyzes the organized social activism of the mostly middle-class, urban, white women of Worcester and finds that they were at the center of community life and leadership. Drawing on rich local history collections, Lawes weaves together information from city and state documents, court cases, medical records, church collections, newspapers, and diaries and letters to create a portrait of a group of women for whom constant personal and social change was the norm. Throughout Women and Reform in a New England Community, conventional women make seemingly unconventional choices. A wealthy Worcester matron helped spark a women-led rebellion against ministerial authority in the town's orthodox Calvinist church. Similarly, a close look at the town's sewing circles reveals that they were vehicles for political exchange as well as social gatherings that included men but intentionally restricted them to a subordinate role. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the women of Worcester had taken up explicitly political and social causes, such as an orphan asylum they founded, funded, and directed. Lawes argues that economic and personal instability rather than a desire for social control motivated women, even relatively privileged ones, into social activism. She concludes that the local activism of the women of Worcester stimulated, and was stimulated by, their interest in the first two national women's rights conventions, held in Worcester in 1850 and 1851. Far from being marginalized from the vital economic, social, and political issues of their day, the women of this antebellum New England community insisted upon being active and ongoing participants in the debates and decisions of their society and nation.

During the nineteenth century, European women of all countries and social classes experienced dramatic and enduring changes in their familial, working and political lives. However, the history of women at this time is not one of unmitigated progress - theirs was an uphill struggle, fraught with hindrances, hard work and economic downturns, and the increasing intrusion of the public into their innermost private and personal lives. Breaking away from traditional categories, Rachel G. Fuchs and Victoria E. Thompson provide a sense of the variety and complexity of women's lives across national and regional boundaries, juxtaposing the experiences of women with the perceptions of their lives. Three themes unite this study: - The tension between tradition and modernity - The changing relationship between the community and individual - The shifting boundaries between public and private Dealing with individual women's lives within a large social and cultural context, Fuchs and Thompson demonstrate how strong and courageous women refused to live within the prescribed domestic roles - and how many became the modern women of the twentieth century.

A reprint of a book first published in 1993 by John Murray, UK. Perkins (women's history, Northwestern U.) uses letters, memoirs, and other revealing, first-hand sources to describe the social conditions of women of all classes during the Victorian era. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Examining popular fiction, life writing, poetry and political works, Rebecca Styler explores women's contributions to theology in the nineteenth century. Female writers, Styler argues, acted as amateur theologians by use of a range of literary genres. Through these, they questioned the Christian tradition relative to contemporary concerns about political ethics, gender identity, and personal meaning. Among Styler's subjects are novels by Emma Worboise; writers of collective biography, including Anna Jameson and Clara Balfour, who study Bible women in order to address contemporary concerns about 'The Woman Question'; poetry by Anne Bronte; and political writing by Harriet Martineau and Josephine Butler. As Styler considers the ways in which each writer negotiates the gender constraints and opportunities that are available to her religious setting and literary genre, she shows the varying degrees of frustration which these writers express with the inadequacy of received religion to meet their personal and ethical needs. All find resources within that tradition, and within their experience, to reconfigure Christianity in creative, and more earth-oriented ways.

By studying the temperance societies that flourished in late Victorian and Edwardian England, this book opens a window through which we can view middle-class and working-class society. Such societies provided the backbone for temperance both as a social movement and a political lobby. Most temperance societies became aligned with the Liberal Party in support of prohibition by Local Veto. A few allowed members to drink, but most were committed to total abstinence. There were organizations of middle-class men, of workingmen and their wives, of women, and of children and youth. The largest adult society was affiliated with the Church of England, but most societies were identified with Nonconformist denominations.

This book presents a study of the development of the feminist movement in Britain and America during the 19th century. Acknowledging the similar social conditions in both countries during that period, the author suggests that a real sense of distinctiveness did exist between British and American feminists. American feminists were inspired by their own perception of the superiority of their social circumstances, for example, whereas British feminists found their cause complicated by traditional considerations of class. Christine Bolt aims to show that the story of the American and British women's movement is one of national distinctiveness within an international cause. This book should be of interest to students and teachers of American and British political history and women's studies.

Women's leadership in Spiritualism and Christian Science / Ann Braude -- The feminism of "Universal Brotherhood," women in the Theosophical Movement / Robert Ellwood and Catherine Wessinger -- Emma Curtis Hopkins, a feminist of the 1880's and mother of new thought / J. Gordon Melton -- Myrtle Fillmore and her daughters, an observation and analysis of the role of women in Unity / Dell deChant -- Woman guru, woman roshi, the legitimation of female religious leadership in Hindu and Buddhist groups in America / Catherine Wessinger. -- Part 3. Contemporary women as creators of religion: Ritual validations of clergywomen's authority in the African American Spiritual churches of New Orleans / David C. Estes --. - Twentieth-century women's religion as seen in the feminist spirit.