Relations of Rescue: The Search for Female Moral Authority in the American West, 1874-1939 - Hardcover

Pascoe, Peggy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195060083 ISBN 13: 9780195060089

Publisher: OUP Oxford, 1990

Synopsis

In the 1870s, a group of Protestant mission women, appalled by the heavily masculine atmosphere of the cities of the American West, came together to construct a dominion of female authority. Creating a network of mission-sponsored homes, the Protestant women maintained what they called `women's work for women', in virtual freedom from male authority. The author presents a sophisticated treatment of the interaction of the Protestant women with women from different ethnic backgrounds, raising some interesting questions about culture and assimilation.

About this title

Review

"Pascoe's brilliant analysis of Protestant women's home mission organizations is indispensable reading for any historian of late nineteenth- or early twentieth-century America. Organized and written with verve and clarity."--American Historical Review

"Has a good chance of becoming one of the benchmark studies in women's history. It brings together issues of race and class, gender and region, and then relates them to ideology."--Women's Review of Books

"A highly sophisticated analysis...Pascoe not only fills a gap in the historical literature on female voluntary associations, but also accomplishes much more."--Western Historical Quarterly

"The best study yet of women's skillful manipulation of Victorian attitudes in the American west...This engrossing book...is graced by clear, precise writing about women's issues unhindered by shrillness and whining. A scholarly joy to read."--CHOICE

"Her chief concern, the history of women in the West, represents some of the bolder and more intensely revisionist themes of the new historians...One of her underlying themes is that the inclusion of women does not merely enrich the overall picture; it changes it dramatically...'Exclude women from Western history, and unreality sets in. Restore them, and the Western drama gains a fully human cast of characters--males and females whose urges, needs, failings, and conflicts we can recognize and even share.'"--The New York Times Magazine

"Pascoe's closely argued...analysis...of 'woman's work for woman' in the West is as timely as it is provocative."--The Nation

"An original and important work...Provides a masterful analysis of feminist ideology, intercultural relations among women, and the dynamics of social control."--Annals of Iowa

Synopsis

The story of a group of Protestant women who came together in the 1870s to construct a dominion of female authority. Playing on the 19th-century belief that women were pious and pure moral guardians, these Protestant women set out to rescue female victims of male abuse.

Edition details

• Publisher: OUP Oxford
• Publication date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0195060083
• ISBN 13: 9780195060089
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 328