Overview

Mississippi native Lucy Somerville Howorth (1895-1997) championed for the rights of women long before feminism was a widely recognised movement. Dorothy S. Shawhan and Martha H. Swain tell her remarkable life story, from her small-town upbringing to her career as an attorney, to her role as a New Deal activist in Washington D.C. Howorth became known for her leadership qualities and quick appraisal of social problems, particularly as they affected women. She became general counsel of the War Claims Commission and held a presidential appointment under four different presidents. This first-ever biography of Howorth bestows long-overdue recognition of her many achievements and illuminates the activism of women long before the women's movement.

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9780807138755

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This biography is much more than an oral history of Howorth's life. Supplementing their interviews with wide-ranging research in archival and manuscript collections, Shawhan and Swain provide a dispassionate assessment of the life of an extraordinary woman who was decades ahead of her times.--Journal of Southern History With this biography Lucy Somerville Howorth . . . takes her rightful place in U.S. feminist history. Shawhan and Swain's treatment of Howorth, whom they knew personally, illuminates the multigenerational evolution of twentieth-century feminism and the central roles Howorth and her associates played in the advancement of a new liberal politics that emphasized universal human rights and economic justice.--Journal of American History The book provides a detailed, insightful, and thorough account of Judge Lucy's long, eventful, and wonderful life.--The Southern Register

Author Information

Dorothy S. Shawhan is the author of the historical novel Lizzie. She lives in Cleveland, Mississippi, where she is chair of the Division of Languages and Literature and a professor of English at Delta State University. Martha H. Swain is the author of Pat Harrison: The New Deal Years and Ellen S. Woodward: New Deal Advocate for Women, winner of the Eudora Welty Award from the Mississippi University for Women. She is Cornaro Professor Emerita of History at Texas Woman's University and lives in Starkville, Mississippi, where she most recently has taught history at Mississippi State University.

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