The Secret History of Home Economics: How Trailblazing Women Harnessed the Power of Home and Changed the Way We Live

The Secret History of Home Economics promised to be interesting, but I had no idea how radical this history was, ot how pervasive its impact on society and politics. Danielle Drelinger's history is full of surprises. 

When I was in junior high, girls were required to take a semester of Home Economics classes. In cooking, I learned how to use displacement to accurately measure shortening. In sewing, we used the Bishop method to make an apron and an A-line skirt. 

I admit, I thought that Home Ec was pretty lame and meant for future housewives. And yet...I taught myself to cook from scratch and to sew, how to organic garden and bake bread, and how to follow a pattern and to make quilts. 

It turns out that there was a reason I felt that way. In the 1960s when I had those classes, the concept of home economics had been diminished from it's roots when scientists and feminists founded home economics studies. I was unaware of the impact on society the home economics had during wartime or in promoting social and advancing racial equity. And I certainly did not know that home economics also enforced a middle class, American, white life style on immigrants, people of color, and the rural poor.

As society changed, the use of home economics reflected the times. 

Drelinger introduces us to a series of intelligent women who were barred from male-dominated careers. Their used their skills in science to study nutrition to help the war effort, support government control to enforce pure foods and temperance, and they created the first nutritional guidelines.

They worked with business to promote new electronic appliances and created recipes for food companies. They wrote pamphlets to support food conservation and the remaking of clothes during the war.

On the dark side, some supported Eugenics and immigrants traditional heritage was ignored as they were pressured to assimilate.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

The Secret History of Home Economics: How Trailblazing Women Harnessed the Power of Home and Changed the Way We Live
by Danielle Dreilinger
W. W. Norton & Company
Pub Date May 4, 2021   
ISBN: 9781324004493
hardcover $27.95 (USD)

from the publisher

The surprising, often fiercely feminist, always fascinating, yet barely known, history of home economics.

The term “home economics” may conjure traumatic memories of lopsided hand-sewn pillows or sunken muffins. But common conception obscures the story of the revolutionary science of better living. The field exploded opportunities for women in the twentieth century by reducing domestic work and providing jobs as professors, engineers, chemists, and business-people. And it has something to teach us today.

In the surprising, often fiercely feminist and always fascinating The Secret History of Home Economics, Danielle Dreilinger traces the field’s history from Black colleges to Eleanor Roosevelt to Okinawa, from a Betty Crocker brigade to DIY techies. These women—and they were mostly women—became chemists and marketers, studied nutrition, health, and exercise, tested parachutes, created astronaut food, and took bold steps in childhood development and education.

Home economics followed the currents of American culture even as it shaped them. Dreilinger brings forward the racism within the movement along with the strides taken by women of color who were influential leaders and innovators. She also looks at the personal lives of home economics’ women, as they chose to be single, share lives with other women, or try for egalitarian marriages.

This groundbreaking and engaging history restores a denigrated subject to its rightful importance, as it reminds us that everyone should learn how to cook a meal, balance their account, and fight for a better world.

About the Author: Danielle Dreilinger is a former New Orleans Times-Picayune education reporter and a Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellow. She also wrote for the Boston Globe and worked at the Boston NPR station WGBH.

***** 

In this book I learned about an item in my collection, a J. C. Penney's publication Fashions and Fabrics that was sold for home ec teacher's use. Read about it here.

I have written about recipe books published by corporations to promote their products

• 1954 Sealtest Recipes
• American Advertising Cookbooks
• Coconut Dishes Everyone Loves
• Big Boy Barbecue Book
• Pies Men Like

The Girl Explorers: The Untold Story of the Globetrotting Women Who Trekked, Flew, and Fought Their Way Around the World

Do not mistake The Girl Explorers to be a lightweight collection of mini-biographies of colorful females dressed in men's attire as they cheerfully cross the globe. 

These females battled every sort of prejudice mankind could cook up. They faced sexual predation and ridicule. They fought for equality and against racism. They exposed the horror of prisons and stood for gay rights. Their work was attacked, diminished, forgotten.  They were suffragettes and feminists and scientists and intrepid risk-takers.

Their achievements were significant, but how many can you recognize? 

Amelia Earhart, of course. We all know that she disappeared. She also wrote her own wedding vows that did not include "obey" but did allow for her husband's infidelity.

Margaret Mead had to be 'rediscovered,' for in her lifetime, she was accused of presenting fake science.

Jayne Zanglein's history of the Society of Women Geographers is about the women I wished I knew about when I was growing up, back when I was reading about Robert Falcon Scott's doomed expedition with nary a female in sight. 

No, the biographies I found about women were nurses and social workers and nuns and such. Traditional female roles, really, even if they were fierce. 

I did have Jane Goodall and Mary Leakey who I read about in dad's National Geographic magazines, and later in books which I bought. 

But so many of these women I had never heard of. 

Their stories are the story of women's progress in their fight to be accepted as equals to the ruling male scientists and explorers. They were more than men's equals in their intrepid spirit, intelligence, endurance, and persistence.

Their work is beautifully described in memorable stories that I will not soon forget. This is a fantastic history, and a must-read for every young woman who dreams of high adventure and scientific endeavors.

I was given a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

The Girl Explorers: The Untold Story of the Globetrotting Women Who Trekked, Flew, and Fought Their Way Around the World
by Jayne Zanglein
SOURCEBOOKS 
Pub Date: March 2, 2021
ISBN: 9781728215242
hardcover $25.99 (USD)

from the publisher

Never tell a woman where she doesn't belong.

In 1932, Roy Chapman Andrews, president of the men-only Explorers Club, boldly stated to hundreds of female students at Barnard College that "women are not adapted to exploration," and that women and exploration do not mix. He obviously didn't know a thing about either...

The Girl Explorers is the inspirational and untold story of the founding of the Society of Women Geographers—an organization of adventurous female world explorers—and how key members served as early advocates for human rights and paved the way for today's women scientists by scaling mountains, exploring the high seas, flying across the Atlantic, and recording the world through film, sculpture, and literature.

Follow in the footsteps of these rebellious women as they travel the globe in search of new species, widen the understanding of hidden cultures, and break records in spades. For these women dared to go where no woman—or man—had gone before, achieving the unthinkable and breaking through barriers to allow future generations to carry on their important and inspiring work.

The Girl Explorers is an inspiring examination of forgotten women from history, perfect for fans of bestselling narrative history books like The Radium Girls, The Woman Who Smashed Codes, and Rise of the Rocket Girls.

Jane Austen Embroidery: Regency Patterns Reimagined for Modern Stitchers

Jane Austen Embroidery: Regency Patterns Reimagined for Modern Stitchers is the kind of book I love, blending needlework and literature and history. 

We learn about Austen's material world and society, the women's work that was expected and the fashions it adorned. Plus, actual patterns from the Regency era Lady's Magazine are reproduced to make projects with today's women in mind.

I enjoyed the essays that introduce embroidery in Austen's time and explain the use of embroidery in dress, trims, and objects for the home. 

I learned so much! Like the double entendre' related to 'muff' and how men sometimes carried a muff. 

The authors plumb Austen's prose and letters for references to these objects and the use of needlework. 

The embroidery patterns are delightful and the instructions are detailed and clear. The projects range from purses to tablecloths, a cell phone pouch and tablet sleeve, to a work bag and sewing set. They cover every part of a modern women's life!

When I first read Austen, I thought a 'sprigged muslin' was a printed fabric. Now I know it could have been hand embroidered, white embroidery on sheer muslin.

We quilters are very familiar with the quilt made by Jane Austen and her family. But I learned that a sampler made by Cassandra Austen, Jane's beloved elder sister, is on display at Chawton.

This is a delightful book that will please embroiderers and Austen lovers alike.

I was given a free book by the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

from the publisher:

Jane Austen was as skillful with a needle as she was with a pen, and this unique book showcases rare and beautiful embroidery patterns from her era, repurposed into 15 modern sewing projects. Derived from Lady's Magazine (1770–1832), a popular monthly periodical of fashion, fiction, and gossip, the projects consist of embroidered clothes, accessories, and housewares. Designs include an evening bag, a muslin shawl, an apron, a floral napkin set and tablecloth, and other pretty and practical items with timeless appeal.

 These authentic patterns — many of which have not been reprinted in more than 200 years—are enlivened by vivid glimpses into the world of Regency women and their domestic lives. Fascinating historical features, quotes from Austen's letters and novels, enchanting drawings, clear instructions, and inspirational project photography trace the patterns' origins and illustrate their imaginative restoration for modern use. A must-have for every Jane Austen fan, this book is suitable for needleworkers at every level of experience.

Jane Austen Embroidery: Regency Patterns Reimagined for Modern Stitchers
by Jennie Batchelor and Alison Larkin
Dover Publications Original
ISBN 10 0486842878
ISBN 13 9780486842875
soft cover $21.95

Deeds Not Words

cover Deeds Not Words

Deeds Not Words features art quilts that appeared in an exhibition commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The traveling, juried exhibition included twenty-nine award-winning quilt artists.

Over eighty years, women fought to gain the vote. The title of this book comes from Emmeline Pankhurst who in 1903 used the slogan "Deeds Not Words" for the Women's Social and Political Union. An accompanying essay addresses the history of the movement and another offers insight into the artists at work.

The book includes photos of early and history quilts that incorporated visual references to the movement.

Each quilt is presented with an artist's comment that explains the history behind her chosen theme and a brief bio of the artist. The quilts are presented in large photographs of the whole and in detail. The methods represented are diverse and represent each artist's unique style.

This is art that inspires and educates. From Arturo Alonzo Sandoval, I learned about Detroit suffragist Ethel Willimans Harkless and the racist element of the Sufferage movement. I had no idea that the FBI called Jane Addams "a most dangerous woman" because of her work as a social reformer, feminist, and pacifist. Addams won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931. Laura Wasilowski portraits Addams 'mug shots' in her quilt.

Read more about the artist on her quilt First Ladies 

In the Appendix, there is a list of all the women whose names appear in Caryl Bryer Fallert-Gentry's quilt First Ladies, women who were the first to accomplish what had only been done by men or who "moved equality forward for others." It is an impressive list! Also is a list of women featured on Sandoval's quilt of Africa-American Suffragists and Colored Women's Clubs.

Deeds Not Words will interest a wide range of readers and will spur an interest in learning more about these brave and inspiring women.

I received a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Sara Bard Field by Martha Wolfe

Nasty Women Keep Fighting by Sue Bleiweiss

about the authors:

Sandra Sider, a studio quilt artist since the 1980s, has led critique workshops for Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) since 2005. She holds an MA in art history from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. Between 2010 and 2013, Sider served as president of SAQA, and today she is editor of SAQA's Art Quilt Quarterly as well as curator of the Texas Quilt Museum. She has written or edited more than a dozen books concerning contemporary quilt art. www.sandrasider.com

Curator of the New England Quilt Museum, Pamela Weeks has been a quilter, fiber artist, quilt historian, and state-juried member of the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen. For eight years she was the executive director of ABC Quilts, where the mission was to send handmade quilts to babies and young children born HIV-positive or drug affected, around the world. Weeks lives in New Hampshire.

Deeds Not Words 
by Sandra Sider and Pamela Weeks
Schiffer Publications
March 28, 2020
ISBN 9780764359170, 0764359177
96 pages, softcover
$19.99 USD

The Queens of Animation by Nathalia Holt

It was the 1956 rerelease of Fantasia that rocked my world. I was four years old and Mom took me to a Buffalo, NY theater to see my first movie. The images and the music made a lasting impression, driving a lifelong love for symphonic music.

I already was in love with illustrative art, thanks to the Little Golden Books that my mother brought home from her weekly grocery shopping trips. My favorite was I Can Fly, illustrated by Mary Blair. And on my wall were Vacu-Form Nursery Rhyme characters including Little Bo Peep, Little Boy Blue--which I later discovered were also designed by Mary Blair! And even later in life, I learned that Mary Blair had worked for Walt Disney. And of course, growing up in the 1950s, anything Disney was a favorite.

Especially the 1959 release of Sleeping Beauty. I was still in my 'princess' phase, which came after my 'cowboy gunslinger' phase. Mom took me to see the film. I had the Disney Sleeping Beauty coloring book. I had the Little Golden Book. And I had the Madame Alexander Sleeping Beauty doll! Sadly, my dog chewed it up but in my 40s I purchased one on eBay to satisfy my inner child.

Fast forward to the late 1980s and my husband and I were buying up Disney videotapes for our son, raising another generation of Disney fandom. His first theatrical movie was The Little Mermaid.

My fandom never took me as far as to read books about the Disney franchise or Walt. Until The Queens of Animation: The Untold Story of the Women Who Transformed the World of Disney and Made Cinematic History. I remembered my love of Mary Blair and thought, Nathalia Holt has something here. I wanted to know the names and the contributions of these unknown women.

It was a joyful read, at once a nostalgic trip into the films that charmed and inspired my childhood-- and our son's --and a revealing and entertaining read about the development of animation and the rise of women in a male-dominated culture. I put aside all other books.

Holt concentrates on the women's careers but includes enough biographical information to make them real and sympathetic. I was so moved to read about Mary Blair's abusive marriage.

Holt also does a stellar job of explaining the rising technologies that would impact animation, eventually eliminating the jobs of hundreds of artists. We learn about Walt's interest in each story that inspired the animated movies and the hard work to develop the story, art, and music, along with the conflicts and competition behind the scenes.

I learned so many interesting facts! Like how Felix Salten's novel Bambi: A Life in the Woods was banned in Nazi Germany because it was a metaphor for Anti-Semitism! How Mary Louise Weiser originated the grease pencil, one of the many technologies Disney developed and perfected or quickly adapted.

And I loved the story of Fantasia. Bianca Majolie presented the music selections to Walt, including The Nutcracker Suite's Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Waltz of the Flowers. Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker ballet had never yet been produced in the United States at the time! The male animators did not want to work on illustrating fairies (they instead created the Pastoral Symphony's centaurs and oversexualized centaurettes, including an African-American servant who was part mule instead of horse).

Choreographer George Balanchine was touring the studio with Igor Stravinsky, whose The Rite of Spring was included in Fantasia, and he loved the faires in the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies. Fifteen years later he debuted The Nutcracker at the new Lincoln Center and it became a Christmastime annual tradition.

I just loved this book for so many reasons! Thank you, Nathalia Holt!

I was given access to a free egalley by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

The Queens of Animation: The Untold Story of the Women Who Transformed the World of Disney and Made Cinematic History
by Nathalia Holt
Little, Brown and Company
Pub Date 22 Oct 2019
ISBN 9780316439152
PRICE $29.00 (USD)

Threads of Life by Claire Hunter

"Sewing has a visual language. It has a voice. It has been used by people to communicate something of themselves--their history, beliefs, prayers and protests."~ from Threads of Life by Claire Hunter

Twenty-eight years ago I made my first quilt and it changed my life. As I honed my skills I was inspired by historic and traditional quilts but also by art quilts.

Early on I dreamed of being able to make quilts that represented my values, interests, and views. I eagerly learned new skills, from hand embroidery and hand quilting to surface design, machine thread work, and fusible applique. I have been making a series of quilts on authors I love. I have created a Pride and Prejudice storybook quilt, an Apollo 11 quilt, and embroidered quilts of the First Ladies, Green Heros, and women abolitionists and Civil Rights leaders.

With my quilt I Will Life My Voice Like A Trumpet,
2013 AQS Grand Rapids quilt show

I was excited to be given an egalley of Claire Hunter's book Threads of Life: A History of the World Through the Eye of a Needle. 

Hunter identifies themes in needlecraft including power, frailty, captivity, identity, connection, protest, loss, community, and voice. She shares a breathtaking number of stories that span history and from across the world.

Hunter begins with the history of the Bayeux Tapestry, a panel of wool embroidery showing scenes from the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Its history illustrates the ups and downs in cultural attitudes toward needlework.

detail from Bayeux Tapestry 

It was forgotten, nearly upcycled, and used for a carnival float backdrop. Napoleon put it in a museum until it fell out of fashion and was again relegated to storage here and there. Himmler got a hold of it during WWII and publicized the artifact and saved it from destruction. Then the French Resistance took possession of the Louvre and the tapestry.

900 years later, the tapestry attracts thousands of viewers every year, a worldwide cultural icon, and inspired The Games of Thrones Tapestry.

Yet, we don't know who designed the tapestry or embroidered it, the challenges and tragedies they faced. They remain anonymous.

I was familiar with the Changi prison camp quilts created during WWII by women POWs in Japanese camps. Hunter explains how the women created images with personal and political meaning to tell loved ones they survived.

quilt made in the Changi Prison Camp

I have seen Mola reverse applique but did not know it was an invention of necessity. Spanish colonists in Panama and Columbia insisted the indigenous women cover their chests. Traditionally, the women sported tattoos with spiritual symbols which they transferred to fabric. In many cultures, cloth has a spiritual element.

Mola Blouse, c. 1990, from the International Quilt Museum

Hunter also touches on Harriet Power's Bible Quilt, Gees Bend quilters, the Glasgow School of Art Department of Needlework, and Suffragists banners.

There was much that was new to me. How  Ukrainian embroidery was forbidden under Soviet rule as they systematically dismantled cultural traditions. Or how the Nazis used Jewish slave labor to sew German uniforms and luxury clothing.

Hunter tells stories from history and also how needle and thread are employed today as therapy and as community engagement and to voice political and feminist statements. She tells the memorable story of guiding male prisoners in the making of curtains for a common room and how she worked with groups, Austrian Aboriginies and Gaelic women, to make banners addressing displacement and community disruption.

We also read about the history of sewing, the impact of industrialization and the rise of factory production, the home sewing machine, the shift from skilled craft to homemade decorative arts.

Art quilters and textile artists like Faith Ringgold and Judy Chicago are discussed.

Social awareness needlework included the quite well known Aids Quilt but also the little known banner The Ribbon, created to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Justine Merritt organized the sewing of peace panels to be stitched together. 25,000 panels were made. 20,000 people collected on August 4, 1985, to wrap the 15-mile long Ribbon around the Pentagon, the Arlington Memorial Bridge, the Lincoln Memorial, and to the Capital and back to the Pentagon. The media and President Reagen ignored it.

Threads of Life may seem an unusual book, a niche book, but I do think it has a wide appeal that will interest many readers.

I was given access to a free egalley through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Threads of Life: A History of the World Through the Eye of a Needle
by Clare Hunter
ABRAMS
Pub Date 01 Oct 2019
ISBN 9781419739538
PRICE $26.00 (USD)

from the publisher

A globe-spanning history of sewing, embroidery, and the people who have used a needle and thread to make their voices heard 

In 1970s Argentina, mothers marched in headscarves embroidered with the names of their “disappeared” children. In Tudor, England, when Mary, Queen of Scots, was under house arrest, her needlework carried her messages to the outside world. From the political propaganda of the Bayeux Tapestry, World War I soldiers coping with PTSD, and the maps sewn by schoolgirls in the New World, to the AIDS quilt, Hmong story clothes, and pink pussyhats, women and men have used the language of sewing to make their voices heard, even in the most desperate of circumstances. 

Threads of Life is a chronicle of identity, protest, memory, power, and politics told through the stories of needlework. Clare Hunter, master of the craft, threads her own narrative as she takes us over centuries and across continents—from medieval France to contemporary Mexico and the United States, and from a POW camp in Singapore to a family attic in Scotland—to celebrate the age-old, universal, and underexplored beauty and power of sewing. Threads of Life is an evocative and moving book about the need we have to tell our story. 

A Celebration of HERstory Quilts Strong Women

Here's to the strong women.

May we know them.

May we be them.

May we raise them.

unknown. 

Suzanne Miller Jones presents 108 juried quilts celebrating women who impacted the world. Some are universally known and some are forgotten. They include women who stood up to power and women who brought laughter into our homes. Most were 'firsts' in their field. 

Each quilt has a full-page color photograph and a full-page artist's statement with a history of the woman celebrated in the quilt, a quote from the subject, and artist information.

The quilt artists use every technique and fabric available, including painting and thread painting, fusible applique and piecing, fabric dying and commercial fabrics, computers and scanners and fabric printing. The descriptions of how the artist made the quilt is as interesting as the subject of the quilt.

Subjects include women from history and women changing the world today. International and American women are represented.

The book is divided into sections: Suffragists, Strong Women, Groups, and Personal Heroes.

I was pleased to see such a diversity of women honored. Some of my favorites include:

• Sally Ride (1951-2012), the first female American astronaut.  Deb Berkebile's portrait shows Sally's well-known wide smile, the Space Shuttle in the background.
• Mary Blair (1911-1978) was a favorite illustrator when I was a child for her book I Can Fly. As a Disney artist, she created the concept art for well-beloved animated films and It's a Small World. Tanya Brown sketched, scanned, and printed her image on fabric then densely stitched it.
• I was pleased to see writers represented, including the late poet Mary Oliver (1935-2019). Barbara Dover offers a pictorial landscape quilt representing Oliver's poem The Summer Day. 
• Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-1977) fought for voting rights in the Jim Crow South, withstanding beatings and jail. Carol Vinick's fabric collage portrait rises above a lunch counter with women of all colors waiting to be served.
• Misty Copland (1982-) is the first African American ballet dancer to be a principal dancer in the American Ballet Theatre. Nneka Gamble shows a young Misty in ballet school, the only girl of color.
• One of my personal favorites among the lesser-known women is Emily Carr (1871-1945), a Canadian artist who studied the Native Americans of British Columbia. I first learned about Carr in Susan Vreeland's novel The Forest Lover. Maggie Vanderwelt honored Carr with a quilt depicting one of the totem poles Carr documented.

HERStory Quilts is an uplifting and inspiring book, educating us about women's history while delighting our eyes as a collection of art.

I received a book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

HERstory Quilts: A Celebration of Strong Women
Susanne Miller Jones
Size: 8 1/2″ x 11″ | 114 color images | 240 pp
ISBN13: 9780764354601
$34.99 hardcover

from the publisher: 

A long-overdue tribute to a selection of women who have shaped history through herstory, this rich collection of 108 mixed-media fiber art pieces celebrates extraordinary women who cracked glass ceilings, made important discoveries, or shook the world by breaking into fields dominated by men. The subjects of these exquisite quilts, by 85 artists from 7 countries, include politicians and scientists, environmentalists and entertainers, activists and artists, athletes and authors—and even a fictional heroine. The quilting medium mirrors the advances these women have made, as the art quilt movement has inspired women to express their creativity in a whole new way.

Gilded Suffragists by Johanna Neuman

Subtitled, The New York Socialites Who Fought for Women's Right to Vote, Johanna Neuman's book credits the forgotten women of the upper class who joined the movement for suffrage.

Just as today the media loves wealth and beauty, a hundred years ago the media loved the elite denizens of New York, helping to establish the power of the 'celebrity endorsement.'

When socialites decided to form their own club, become involved with the betterment of the immigrant and the poor, and support women's right to self-government, they provided much-needed funding and a public voice from within the establishment.

They thought it important to be well dressed and feminine to counter the stereotype of suffragettes as masculine or hysterical. Some took to soap boxes while others held elegant soirees. The women publicly paraded in white with banners, an act of nonconformity that brought ridicule and angry threats. Eventually, enlightened men supported their wives, marching with them, while others' disapproving husbands sat grimly on the sidelines.

WWI had a huge impact on the movement. The Suffragettes were criticized for drawing the president's attention away from the war, and it was then that they became targets of police brutality and inhumane treatment in prison.

I was moved by the story of Jeanette Rankin, a pacifist Montana Republican and the first women elected to the U.S. Congress. When President Wilson asked Congress to approve entering WWI, Rankin was under huge pressure. Should she stand by her pacifist beliefs? Or, representing all women and their political future, must she prove that women could rise to the occasion and support war when circumstances required it?

When Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony published their History of Woman Suffrage they omitted or distorted the history of the movement, emphasizing their own roles as founders. Over the years, the Gilded Suffragists were relegated to the sidelines of history and then were forgotten.

Neuman locates the movement in the history of the early 20th c., a time of great social change, including the establishment of the federal income tax, laws overseeing business, and population shifts from rural to urban areas.

I finished this book August 18; it was on August 18, 1920, that the 19th Amendment was passed. In some ways, women have come a long way, and yet our rights for self-determination and political equality are under threat. A hundred years ago society's darlings, dressed in couture fashions and big hats, stood up for social equality. I would like to know, are today's women of the 1% as willing or interested in standing up for political equality? Or is it only the new class of elites from the entertainment business that have the courage?

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Gilded Suffragists: The New York Socialites who Fought for Women's Right to Vote
by Johanna Neuman
NYU Press
Pub Date: Sep. 5, 2017
Hardcover $27.95
ISBN:9781479837069

A True Story of Hollywood's Golden Age: Such Mad Fun

The 1939 Cosmopolitan cover says it all: The lovely and glamourous Jane Hall with her beloved Kate, captured at the height of her successful career as a Hollywood screen writer. The real deal, an early writing genuis published at age 13 who ended up in an office next door to F. Scott Fitzgerald screenwriting writing for the cash desperately needed to support his daughter Scottie in private school and wife Zelda in the sanitarium. He became a mentor and friend to Jane.

An Arizonia small town girl orphaned early and raised by her New York City aunt and uncle, Jane attended a posh private school and 'came out' as a deb. Caught up in the mad fun of endless deb parties that lasted into the early morning hours and required long days of sleep before the cycle started again, she found deb life shallow but irresistable.

Jane's early success writing for magazines was based on her outsider/insider look at the glamourous life of her contemporaries. Attracking the notice of an agent she was hired by MGM where she wrote the screenplay for These Glamour Girls. Jane thrived in the exhausting long days and hobnobbing with Hollywood elite at night. She was a success.

She kept suitors at bay with a singleminded desire to write...until she finally succumbed to the charming and handsome Bob Cutler, a recovering alcoholic and divorcee. Jane thought she'd met her Prince Charming, the perfect man who would also whole heartedly support her career. His glamourous life and money beckoned. They were the 'prefect couple'. They had a quiet marriage and a glamourous life.

But with marriage came responsiblities and Jane found it harder and harder to write, the old stories were old and she couldn't get a grasp on new stories. Metro hired her for $850 a week to work on a picture that was never made; the Japanese attacked Pear Harbor and everything changed.

The magazines were clamouring for Jane to submit stories, but she was facing writer's block. And after a mere 18 months of marriage she discovered the real Bob, a man who retreated into himself while dependant and demanding. Jane gave birth to her only child, and found that family expectations took over her life. She managed to write several more stories but realized that her Hollywood career has been 'thrown away'. Jane, like many women, settled for good enough.

Robin Cutler has presented an interesting biography of her mother's carer, enriched by personal letters and details of her screenplays and stories. Tis is more than a family memoir; it is a hitory of Hollywood's movie business and the Golden Age's 'mad fun' society. She also considers her mother's life in context of social expectations and opportunities for women at that time. Today many female writers juggle personal and professional lives. Jane lived during a time that offered little support for women desiring careers; in fact the author points out that some successful women felt guitly about their careers.

You can read more about Jane Hall and her life and times at Robin Cutler's website at
https://robinrcutler.com/

Read my review of West of Sunset by Stewart O'Nan about F. Scott Fitzgerald's last days in Hollywood at
http://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2015/01/drugs-booze-and-women-fitzgerald-in.html

I recieved a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Such Mad Fun
Robin R, Cutler
View Tree Press
Publication Sept 8, 2016
ISBN:97809974823-0-0 $14.95 paper
ISBN:97809974823-2-4  $9.99 ebook

Behind Every Great Man Is...A Woman With A Blooming Idiot of a Husband?

Behind Every Great Man: Forgotten Women Behind the World's Famous and Infamous by Marlene Wagman-Geller was touted as about the women who helped 'propel' their husbands 'to the top'.

I was all for reading about gals like, say, Dolley Madison and Abigail Adams, but who had been forgotten by the historians. (Likely because they were too busy writing about the men.) 28 women nearly forgotten! Including Alma Hitchcock and Emma Wedgewood Darwin!

Wagman-Geller is very entertaining. You laugh out loud, you grind your teeth. But I felt really bad about laughing at these women, many of whom suffered great indignities and suffering because of the love for 'their man,' some of whom are candidates for the Worst Husband of the Millennium Award.

Each woman's biographical sketch consists of a few pages; Mrs Stephen Hawking has 10 pages plus photos. One could find out most of this information Goggling around online. (Of course, you would not have Wagman-Geller's lively narrative.) If you want brief biographies with attitude, this is the book for you.

The author is not above using the women's peccadilloes for laughs, or to arouse one's distaste. Some of these gals were outrageous and some plain evil. Those who were badly used by their husbands deserved a more respectful treatment.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley for a fair and unbiased review.

Behind Every Great Man
Marlene Wagman-Geller
Sourcebooks
ISBN: 9781492603054
$16.99
Publication Date: March 1, 2015

Completed Quilt!

I finally finished "I Will Lift My Voice Like A Trumpet", celebrating the women who worked for abolition and Civil Rights.

In keeping with the old fashioned look, I quilted it in a modified Methodist Fan pattern.