Historiography of Progressive Era Women’s Organizations

by Emily Gray

In the field of Progressive Era women’s history, there is the subfield of women’s organizations. The Progressive Era was a time of historic change. The many social and political reforms could not have been possible without help from women’s associations nationwide. Despite their involvement in many successes, women’s organizations and clubs are often overlooked in many Progressive Era achievements. Women’s associations helped improve their city’s infrastructure, community, and home life. While there were progressive reforms, conservative reform movements were happening simultaneously. Many women’s organizations pushed for temperance and a more drastic movement of the second wave of the KKK. This historiography includes works by historians and scholars about municipal housekeeping, intersectionality, and moralistic language in Progressive Era women’s organizations.

The first analysis of Progressive Era women’s clubs and organizations began in the late 1980s into the 1990s. During this time, there was a trend of historians focusing on women’s histories and experiences for the first time. As this historiography shows, many books and articles mentioned were written during this time period. While there are other prominent works closer to the present day, these early works were stepping stones for future historians.

One of the earliest historians to write about women’s organizations was Maureen A. Flanagan in her article “Gender and Urban Political Reform: The City Club and the Woman’s City Club of Chicago in the Progressive Era,” published in 1990. Flanagan uses the method of gender to support her argument that women actively participated in the politics of causes and reform in the first two decades of the twentieth century by comparing Chicago's City Club and the Women’s City Club.^[1] In her article, she compares both clubs’ efforts to solve the city's three problems: how to deal with garbage in the city and how to dispose of it, the issue of public education, and police power in the city. For each problem, Flanagan analyzes how each club tackled the issue and what was the most effective. For the first issue of garbage disposal, the City Club wanted the garbage controlled by private businesses for financial reasons. Whereas the Women’s City Club decided it should be run by the municipal ownership of the city’s department of health. The solution was the women’s club’s proposal, and it was successful, making the city profit $6,000 in the first year.^[2]

Flanagan explains that the men in the City Club dealt with issues with a business-forward approach. In contrast, the Women’s City Club approached the conflicts with solutions for the well-being of everyone in the city regardless of whether it was profitable. She uses minutes from the Women’s City Club’s meetings along with journals, yearbooks, and flyers published by the club to get a first-hand understanding of the decisions made by the clubs.  When this method was first introduced, historians focused solely on women and a woman-centered perspective. However, starting in the 1990s, men began to be included in the discussion and research of gender history.^[3] Flanagan was one of the first historians to incorporate men into her analysis of gender since her article was published in 1990. By comparing and contrasting how the male-dominated Chicago City Club and the Women’s City Club worked out problems, she could explain how women could gain power and improve their community better than if she were to only analyze the women’s club.

In her analysis, she concluded that women were more successful than the men in figuring out solutions that benefited everyone because they approached the problems the same way they approached housework. Because of their different relationships to the urban power structure, the members came to a vision of a good city and specific proposals of how best to provide for the welfare of its residents. Twenty years after Flanagan’s article, another historian discusses a similar concept to municipal housekeeping in women’s associations. Lynn Dumenil analyzes maternalism in women's organizations in Los Angeles in her article “Women’s Reform Organizations and Wartime Mobilization in World War I-Era Los Angeles.” Dumenil defines maternalism as the idea that “women’s nurturing roles in the home could be brought into the public arena to implement social reforms, especially those concerning poor women and children.”^[4] Women were excluded from positions of power that entailed decision-making authority, and Federal departments often ignored women’s organizations like the Woman’s Committee of the Council of National Defense (WCND). Women created a ‘new’ idea of citizenship to allow them to navigate into male-dominated political parties.^[5] They were able to lean into the idea of maternalism and use it to their advantage to create reform, suffrage, and organization during the wartime.

In her article, Dumenil concentrates solely on white women’s organizations. Unlike Flanagan, she explains why the article only looks at white organizations. One reason is that white women left behind the most extensive record of the efforts, and because of the already existing white clubs, they had experience participating in national networking.^[6] “The very absence of significant records concerning the war work of immigrant or black women in the Los Angeles WCND archives suggests how the leaders marginalized non-elite women.”^[7] The white women involved in associations were normally upper-middle to middle class and had enough resources and leisure time to participate in the reform. Other scholars in the historiography, such as Linda Gordon and Maureen Flanagan, also highlight the dominance of elite white women. 

Along with her discussion of maternalism, she introduces a new topic into the historiography. Dumenil focuses on wartime mobilization in World War I and the efforts of organizations that other historians have mentioned. Already existing organizations changed their focus to war mobilizations rather than the creation of new organizations. The Young Women’s Christian Association and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union were two prominent national women's organizations active in war support. “Both refashioned their traditional programs in the context of the war and worked closely with the federal gov in support of both moral reform and victory in Europe.”^[8] Los Angeles chapters had increased tensions at the beginning of the war because of the national headquarters' decisions to change the course of projects for the war, and it might conflict with fundraising for ongoing local projects.^[9] The women’s efforts to support the war led the organizations and leaders to work with federal departments and programs. Several women's committees were created by the food commissioner to promote housewives' conservation efforts.^[10]

This article, unlike many of the other works in this subfield, has a narrow focus on one city rather than the national scope. Whereas Flanagan’s article was hyper-specific on one organization in a major city, other historians like Scott, Blee, and Gordon have a broad analysis of the nation or even Tyrrell’s international scope. The population of Los Angeles in 1910 was approximately 310,000, nowhere near its population today of close to four million.^[11] The smaller scale of Dumenil’s geographic focus allows for an in-depth analysis of female wartime organizations. By examining Progressive Era organizations on a local level, this article gives insight into how voluntary associations mediated between the federal government and citizens and “engaged white women in a sense of the immediacy of war and the necessity of their support.”^[12]

As mentioned before, Flanagan’s article lacked analysis of women of color or of different social status to those in the Chicago Women’s City Club. The article discusses the efforts of middle to upper-class white women whose husbands were of high enough status to be in the Chicago City Club. Women of different races or social classes have a different approach than those of the city club because of their more diverse life experiences. Despite this, Flanagan’s analysis of the two city clubs and her use of the method of gender created a strong basis for the start of the historiography of progressive-era women’s organizations.

Two different articles written in 1990 by Anne Firor Scott and in 1991 by Sharon Harley introduce the newly coined concept of intersectionality. The term intersectionality was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, only one year before Scott’s article was published. Intersectionality can be defined as the relationship of one’s attributes such as race, gender, class, and sexuality, are overlapping rather than isolated and affects their living experience. In her article “Most Invisible of All: Black Women’s Voluntary Associations,” Scott explains the history of black women’s associations and how they benefited their communities. In Scott’s argument that black women have created and been active in organizations for hundreds of years, she delves into the lives of these women of all social classes. Harley’s article,  “When Your Work Is Not Who You Are: The Development of a Working-Class Consciousness among Afro-American Women,” explores how working black women gained class consciousness through creating organizations. Their articles explain the differences and struggles of black women in these associations because of their differing social statuses. Despite Scott and Harley not using the term intersectionality, their explanation of black women's struggles because of their race, gender, and social-economic class uses the same premise as the term intersectionality. Harley’s article was so crucial to the historiography and the newly introduced term; it was used in Houses of History, a book about the research methods of history.^[13]

Not only were black women fighting to improve their communities, but they were also fighting for social status within their organizations. Educated black women, mostly light-skinned, were able to escape poverty and attend college, marry professional men, and became “model Victorian ladies.”^[14] These women were often more resented when they succeeded than when they failed; this created conflict in the organizations that had both elite and middle to low-class women participating.

 When the organizations began to focus on improving home life, it was led by elite black women who blamed the victims for their poverty and ignored the economic struggle that was causing the lack of ‘proper’ aspects of home life.^[15] Although there was conflict, the organizations continued, and educated women organized near universities and fought for education. Women who came from poverty were able to use their past experiences to help other women leave farms and plantations. Without help from their white female peers, and the occasional help from black men, black women had to work together from across the country to create change.

Even though white and black women fought for the same respect and change for their communities, the white organizations separated themselves from the black associations. When an educated black woman was going to represent her chapter at the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, there was uproar from the ‘progressive’ white associations.^[16] It was no surprise that there was immense conflict when a black woman wanted to join a club that was predominantly white.^[17] Despite the pushback and lack of support from their white peers, Scott highlights that black women were able to collaborate on their differences, and women from all social statuses and backgrounds were able to create associations that benefited their communities.

Scott’s article argues that black women created and were involved in organizations and clubs for over 100 years before the Progressive Era. Before the emancipation of the enslaved, only free black women were able to organize themselves. They had begun to “create, first, welfare organizations and, then, schools, health centers, orphanages, and many other institutions.”^[18] By 1830, there were almost thirty female mutual aid societies in Philadelphia alone.^[19] However, after the Civil War, previously enslaved women were able to catch up to their peer’s organization skills quickly. Some of these early organizations had both men and women as members and female leaders, unlike many other coed groups.^[20] These associations met and organized in churches because of how important the church was to these black communities. Churches were a prominent contribution to forming a community in the 19th century. These women's work helped unify their communities, and the church was an easy and open setting for their progressive work.

Organizations in the Midwest and the North created safe spaces for black women leaving farms and plantations in the South. By the 1910s, the organizations narrowed their focus to improving the nature of home life. This included “sermons on cleanliness, neatness, intelligent care of children.”^[21] Despite the prejudice and hate that these women received, they continued to “deal with the most completing needs of their neighbors.”^[22] A few times in the early twentieth century, some black associations worked with similar white associations who were hesitant to join forces but quickly realized how much the two groups had in common.

Scott’s article was one of the first works written in the historiography of women’s organizations and has been used dozens of times in other relevant articles and books in the historiography. Her article set the stage for other works to be written about black women’s organizations, and her notes in the article explained where others could start their research. Linda Gordon’s article, “Black and White Visions of Welfare,” uses “Most Invisible of All” in her analysis as well as Scott’s personal insight into Gordon’s article.^[23] Scott concludes her article by explaining that the “veil of invisibility” should be lifted, and as more historians uncover the work of black women, more will follow.^[24] Her call to action has been somewhat answered in the past thirty years by other historians who have used Scott’s article in their own work.

“When Your Work Is Not Who You Are” introduces labor history to the historiography of women’s organizations. Harley's article argues that despite black women’s exclusion from trade unions and the delayed identity and class consciousness, they improved their working conditions through their clubs and organizations. She defines working-class consciousness as shared interests and articulation of work-related concerns and that the “development of a working-class consciousness among black women during the Progressive Era was affected by their domestic roles and occupational status, which differed somewhat from those of their white counterparts.”^[25] Harley explains by using labor history that because of racial exclusivity, black women could not join labor or trade unions and therefore gain class consciousness, in contrast to white laborers. Black women were almost universally excluded from the major Progressive Era trade unions. Many married black women were employed because of the greater economic pressures on their household, like lower wages and seasonal employment.^[26] Although most black female workers were of low status, it did not affect the consciousness of black laborers.^[27] Similar to Scott’s work, Harley’s article has been used in dozens of works since 1991 about black women’s involvement and activism in labor history and clubs and associations.

Scott and Harley’s articles solely focused on black women's organizations and did not compare the organizations to white clubs. Linda Gordon’s article,  “Black and White Visions of Welfare: Women’s Welfare Activism, 1890-1945.” compares black and white female reformers to explain how race, gender, and class influenced welfare thinking. Gordon explains that during her research of white organizations, she could not distinguish the influence of gender from that of race through white women’s perspectives. But by including black women’s perspectives, she was able to create a thorough comparison of black and white organizations.^[28] In the article, Gordon separately analyzed white and black reformers because they were already mostly in segregated groups such as the Young Women’s Christian Association. “While the black group was created in part by white racism, it was also created from the inside by personal friendships.”^[29] Gordon argues that there are three major areas of differences between white and black organizations: the nature of entitlement, the attitude towards mothers’ employment, and strategies for protecting women from sexual exploitation.^[30] Most of the article explains the two groups' entitlement. White women strongly saw themselves helping others, not only socially but also ethnically and religiously. This was influenced by the “large-scale immigration, the reconstruction of the urban working class by non-Wasp origin, and residential segregation.” ^[31] Whereas black women were concerned with their own kind. They focused on the health, education, and universal needs of their communities. Both groups share the “conviction that the poor needed training to develop not only skills but also moral and spiritual capacities.”^[32] Despite their differences, both groups oriented much of welfare reforms to children and used their organizations as their primary political and social channels. They also both encouraged the employment of women in leadership positions because they believed that “increasing numbers of women would benefit the public welfare.”^[33] Gordon concludes her article with a call to action to reflect and implement the methods of black organization into our current welfare programs.

An article like Gordon’s that was published early on in historiography allows for growth by other historians. Gordon did extensive research and used two kinds of data for the article, both written and oral history. She uses a “rudimentary collective biography of 145 black and white women who were national leaders in the campaigns for public welfare” during the time period.^[34] There are several oral history projects that she uses that were conducted during the 1970 and 80s. The Black Oral History Project and Women in Federal Government Oral Histories are from the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

As the subfield has aged, there has been an increasing focus on the conservative work of women’s organizations. Several conservative organizations have already been mentioned, such as the Young Women’s Christian Association and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. The latter organization was involved in the temperance movement during the era. Many works discuss and analyze the temperance movement and the organizations associated with it nationally. Historian Ian Tyrrell takes a different approach to the movement and analyzes it through an international scope in his book, Woman's World/Woman's Empire: The Woman's Christian Temperance Union in International Perspective, 1880-1930. Tyrrell argues that past historians have not given enough thought to the relationship that religion played in the WCTU and how religion influenced the work of missionaries hoping to bring WCTU to other countries.^[35]

Tyrrell explores the organization's struggles because of religious affiliation in chapter four. In countries where protestant, evangelical religion was not the majority, the WCTU did not become popular. There was also the difference in drinking culture in countries in Europe, despite one’s religion. “In Scandinavian countries the Protestant groups were dominant and yet they too were only modestly attracted to the WCTU, which stood for total abstinence.”^[36] In Asia, the movement had better luck. “The WWCTU crossed racial and cultural barriers most notably in the missionary communities of China, India, and Japan.”^[37] Those who joined the organization were drawn in by the appeal of ‘Americanization.’ The WCTU promoted the organization of housework and the application of technology to the home, such as a stove or an American sewing machine.^[38] The use of the religious aspect of the union and the insistence on absence was a plus and limiting to those from other countries.

Morality was an issue that many women’s organizations were concerned about. This included many aspects of a woman’s life: home life, temperance, and sexuality, to name a few. One of the leading organizations that pushed morality was the Young Women’s Christian Association. Dumenil discusses how war work increased the concern with the low home standards of morality among young working women. The association was worried about the increased dancing and movies that young women participated in, along with improper flirtations with soldiers.^[39] The YWCA partnered with the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) through federal agency instruction to foster “behavioral norms that would hold both men and women to the same high single sexual standard, a goal that stretched far beyond the specific wartime concern regarding disease.”^[40] The CTCA, Commission on Training Camp Activities, was created to promote a high standard of morality. The association shut down saloons and promoted temperance, along with creating “long-standing campaigns for sexual reform among women. Dumenil’s analysis of these organizations highlights conservative efforts from organizations like the YWCA, which also had many progressive reforms and activism. 

A leading historian in this trend of conservative analysis is Kathleen M. Blee. In her book Women of the Klan: Racism and Gender in the 1920s, Blee examines the use of moralistic language that led to many women joining the Klan in Indiana and its internal declaration of racial, nationalistic, and religious hatred performed by the women in the KKK. Morality is used in most political movements; the second Klan used morality that was inevitably tied to gender and symbols of white womanhood. “The Klan incorporated ideas and rhetoric from women’s rights to define its moral terrain.”^[41] Some of the morals the Klan used were similar to other organizations that encouraged morality for women and families, such as marital monogamy and temperance. The Klan used a similar language of women’s rights and that it was women’s duty to end immorality that was threatening to white Protestant women.^[42] “Similar to the temperance and purity movements, the Klan supported public efforts to control private conduct.”^[43]

Because of the nature of the book’s content, Blee struggled to find women who would openly talk about their involvement in the Klan. She utilized public documents of women’s memberships, those identified by anti-Klan organizations, and women who were listed on Klan documents.^[44] Once she identified the women, she requested to interview them. Many declined, but several either sent in written recollections, were interested without being recorded, or had a recorded interview. In total, she recorded accounts from twenty-four different women.^[45] Blee’s contribution just from oral histories alone is a massive asset to historiography, not to mention the additional research she did.

This limited historiography of Progressive Era women’s organizations is only a small slice of the entire subfield. The analysis of gender and race in these organizations has had a lasting impact on the field of women’s history. In the future, one hopes for more research and analysis into other women of color organizations and how they impacted their communities. Along with how minorities were able to react and counter the conservative attacks done by racially conservative white women’s groups. Women’s organizations' impact on the Progressive Era continues to influence life today, similar to the continually growing scholarship.  

^[1] Flanagan, Maureen A. “Gender and Urban Political Reform: The City Club and the Woman’s City Club of Chicago in the Progressive Era.” The American Historical Review 95, no. 4 (1990): 1033-34. https://doi.org/10.2307/2163477.

^[2] Flanagan, Maureen A. “Gender and Urban Political Reform” 1037-1039.

^[3] Green, Anna, and Kathleen Troup. The Houses of History, 284.

^[4] Dumenil, Lynn. “Women’s Reform Organizations and Wartime Mobilization in World War I-Era Los Angeles.” The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 10, no. 2 (2011): 217. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23045158.

^[5] Dumenil, Lynn. “Women’s Reform Organizations and Wartime Mobilization,” 217.

^[6] Dumenil, Lynn. “Women’s Reform Organizations and Wartime Mobilization,” 216.

^[7] Dumenil, Lynn. “Women’s Reform Organizations and Wartime Mobilization,” 221.

^[8] Dumenil, Lynn. “Women’s Reform Organizations and Wartime Mobilization,” 229.

^[9] Dumenil, Lynn. “Women’s Reform Organizations and Wartime Mobilization,” 230-232.

^[10] Dumenil, Lynn. “Women’s Reform Organizations and Wartime Mobilization,” 242.

^[11] Dumenil, Lynn. “Women’s Reform Organizations and Wartime Mobilization,” 217.

^[12] Dumenil, Lynn. “Women’s Reform Organizations and Wartime Mobilization,” 245.

^[13] Green, Anna, and Kathleen Troup. “Gender and history.”The Houses of History: A Critical Reader in History and Theory, Second Edition, 293. Manchester University Press, 2016.

^[14] Scott, Anne Firor. “Most Invisible of All,” 11.

^[15] Scott, Anne Firor. “Most Invisible of All,” 13.

^[16] Scott, Anne Firor. “Most Invisible of All,” 20-21.

^[17] Scott, Anne Firor. “Most Invisible of All,” 21.

^[18] Scott, Anne Firor. “Most Invisible of All: Black Women’s Voluntary Associations.” The Journal of Southern History 56, no. 1 (1990): 5. https://doi.org/10.2307/2210662.

^[19] Scott, Anne Firor. “Most Invisible of All,” 6.

^[20] Scott, Anne Firor. “Most Invisible of All,” 7.

^[21] Scott, Anne Firor. “Most Invisible of All,” 13.

^[22] Scott, Anne Firor. “Most Invisible of All,” 14.

^[23] Gordon, Linda. “Black and White Visions of Welfare: Women’s Welfare Activism, 1890-1945.” The Journal of American History 78, no. 2 (1991): 559. https://doi.org/10.2307/2079534.

^[24]  Scott, Anne Firor. “Most Invisible of All,” 22.

^[25] Frankel, Noralee, Nancy S. Dye, eds. Sharon Harley. “When Your Work Is Not Who You Are: The Development of a Working-Class Consciousness among Afro-American Women .” Essay. In Gender, Class, Race, and Reform in the Progressive Era, 42–43. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1991.

^[26] Sharon Harley. “Working-Class Consciousness among Afro-American Women,” 45.

^[27] Sharon Harley. “Working-Class Consciousness among Afro-American Women,” 47.

^[28] Gordon, Linda. “Black and White Visions of Welfare,” 559.

^[29] Gordon, Linda. “Black and White Visions of Welfare,” 564.

^[30] Gordon, Linda. “Black and White Visions of Welfare,” 559.

^[31] Gordon, Linda. “Black and White Visions of Welfare,” 578.

^[32] Gordon, Linda. “Black and White Visions of Welfare,” 578.

^[33] Gordon, Linda. “Black and White Visions of Welfare,” 587-88.

^[34] Gordon, Linda. “Black and White Visions of Welfare,” 562.

^[35] Tyrrell, Ian. Woman's World/Woman's Empire: The Woman's Christian Temperance Union in International Perspective, 1880-1930, 31. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991.

^[36] Tyrrell, Ian. Woman's World/Woman's Empire, 126.

^[37] Tyrrell, Ian. Woman's World/Woman's Empire, 140.

^[38] Tyrrell, Ian. Woman's World/Woman's Empire, 144.

^[39] Dumenil, Lynn. “Women’s Reform Organizations and Wartime Mobilization,” 231.

^[40] Dumenil, Lynn. “Women’s Reform Organizations and Wartime Mobilization,” 231-32.

^[41] Blee, Kathleen M. Women of the Klan: Racism and Gender in the 1920s, 71. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2009.

^[42] Blee, Kathleen M. Women of the Klan, 70.

^[43] Blee, Kathleen M. Women of the Klan, 98.

^[44] Blee, Kathleen M. Women of the Klan, 4.

^[45] Blee, Kathleen M. Women of the Klan, 6.