Overview

David Hanzlick traces the rise and evolution of women’s activism in a rapidly growing, Midwestern border city, one deeply scarred by the Civil War and struggling to determine its meaning. Over the course of 70 years, women in Kansas City emerged from the domestic sphere by forming and working in female-led organizations to provide charitable relief, reform society’s ills, and ultimately claim space for themselves as full participants in the American polity. Focusing on the social construction of gender, class, and race, and the influence of political philosophy in shaping responses to poverty, Hanzlick also considers the ways in which city politics shaped the interactions of local activist women with national women’s groups and male-led organizations.

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9780826221629

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Hanzlick's work reveals an intensive depth into the development and impact of women's activism in a critical midwestern city. The work offers a unique perspective with rich details that challenges typical works in this field that often maintain a narrow focus on eastern cities. --Kyle Anthony, Assistant Professor, University of Saint Mary David Hanzlick establishes the importance of women's political activism to the history of the urban Midwest and Kansas City in particular. He reminds us of the critical role of well-researched, locally based case studies in testing our assumptions about the ways that people claimed power in the past. --John W. McKerley, Iowa Labor History Oral Project, University of Iowa Labor Center In this meticulously researched and engaging book, David Hanzlick carefully reconstructs the unique history of Kansas City and its reform movements from before the Civil War through the mid-twentieth century and demonstrates that the gender and class dynamics of American reform played out in different and interesting ways there than in better-studied cities. The book is recommended for those interested broadly in social reform as well as those engaged with the revitalization of the history of the Midwest --Catherine Rymph, University of Missouri, author of Raising Government Children: A History of Foster Care and the American Welfare State This work will not only be of interest to Kansas Citians but also to scholars of the Progressive Era, the woman's rights movement, and Missouri history --Petra DeWitt, Missouri University of Science and Technology, author of Degrees of Allegiance: Harassment and Loyalty in Missouri's German-American Community during World War I

This work will not only be of interest to Kansas Citians but also to scholars of the Progressive Era, the woman's rights movement, and Missouri history --Petra DeWitt, Missouri University of Science and Technology, author of Degrees of Allegiance: Harassment and Loyalty in Missouri's German-American Community during World War I

Author Information

K. David Hanzlick is Director of Program and Development for Sheffield Place, a treatment and transitional living program for homeless mothers and children. He also serves as an adjunct faculty member in the Nonprofit Leadership Program at Rockhurst University and the Hauptmann School of Public Affairs at Park University.

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