Funding Feminism: Monied Women, Philanthropy, and the Women’s Movement, 1870–1967

Description

Joan Marie Johnson examines an understudied dimension of women's history in the United States: how a group of affluent white women from the late nineteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries advanced the status of all women through acts of philanthropy. This cadre of activists included Phoebe Hearst, the mother of William Randolph Hearst; Grace Dodge, granddaughter of Wall Street "Merchant Prince" William Earle Dodge; and Ava Belmont, who married into the Vanderbilt family fortune. Motivated by their own experiences with sexism, and focusing on women's need for economic independence, these benefactors sought to expand women's access to higher education, promote suffrage, and champion reproductive rights, as well as to provide assistance to working-class women. In a time when women still wielded limited political power, philanthropy was perhaps the most potent tool they had. But even as these wealthy women exercised considerable influence, their activism had significant limits. As Johnson argues, restrictions tied to their giving engendered resentment and jeopardized efforts to establish coalitions across racial and class lines. As the struggle for full economic and political power and self-determination for women continues today, this history reveals how generous women helped shape the movement. And Johnson shows us that tensions over wealth and power that persist in the modern movement have deep historical roots. Cover ......Page 1 Contents......Page 8 Acknowledgments......Page 12 Introduction......Page 18 Chapter One. Following the Money: Funding Woman Suffrage......Page 36 Chapter Two. Unequal Women Working for Women’s Equality: Power and Resentment in the Woman Suffrage Movement......Page 67 Chapter Three. Dictating with Dollars: Funding Equality for Working-Class Women......Page 96 Chapter Four. An Education for Women Equal to That of Men: Funding Colleges for Women......Page 125 Chapter Five. Using Mammon for Righteousness: Funding Coeducation through Coercive Philanthropy......Page 156 Chapter Six. Margaret Sanger’s Network of Feminists: Funding the Birth Control Movement......Page 186 Chapter Seven. Feminism and Science: Funding Research for the Pill......Page 216 Epilogue......Page 240 Notes......Page 248 Bibliography......Page 294 C......Page 316 H......Page 317 O......Page 318 S ......Page 319 Y......Page 320