Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-11T01:09:47.960Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Social Justice Feminists and Their Counter-Hegemonic Actions in the Post-World War II United States, 1945–1964

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 October 2018

John Thomas McGuire
John Thomas McGuire*
Affiliation:
Siena College
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Building upon the theoretical framework of Italian activist and scholar Antonio Gramsci, and using historical and public administrative sources, this article argues that while social justice feminism as a social movement in the United States declined by 1940, former participants continued their counter-hegemonic actions after World War II. Facing a new political and cultural hegemony increasingly dominated by fears of atomic annihilation, Soviet domination, and domestic Communist infiltration, women progressives, such as Frieda Miller and Esther Peterson, developed new approaches to continuing their counter-hegemonic aims, particularly through reviving an alternative view of public administration. Miller and Peterson thus helped prepare the way for women's activism in the United States to shift from economic security to equal rights by the mid-1960s, thus establishing an increasingly effective counter-hegemonic effort against the continuing patriarchal hegemony.

Keywords

social justice feminismAntonio Gramscihegemony and counter-hegemonysocial movements in post-World War II United Statesfeminist agency
Type
Research Article
Information
Politics & Gender , Volume 15 , Issue 4 , December 2019 , pp. 971 - 990
Copyright
Copyright © The Women and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association 2018

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adamson, Walter L. 1983. Hegemony and Revolution: A Study of Antonio Gramsci's Political and Cultural Theory. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Adkins v. Children's Hospital. 1923. 261 US 525.Google Scholar
Adams, Gary B. 1992. “Enthralled with Modernity: The Historical Context of Knowledge and Theory Development in Public Administration.” Public Administration Review 52(2): 363–73.10.2307/3110396CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Mary. 1951. Women at Work: The Autobiography of Mary Anderson as Told to Mary. Winslow. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Barakso, Maryann. 2004. Governing NOW: Grassroots Activism in the National Organization for Women. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Bates, Thomas R. 1975. “Gramsci and the Theory of Hegemony.” Journal of the History of Ideas 36(2): 351–66.10.2307/2708933CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blewett, Michael H. 1974. “Roosevelt, Truman, and the Attempt to Revive the New Deal.” In Harry S Truman and the Fair Deal, ed. Hamby, Alonzo, 78–92. Lexington, MA: Heath and Co.Google Scholar
Chafe, William H. 2003. The Unfinished Journey: America since World War II, 5th ed.New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chandler, Malcolm. 2002. Britain in the Age of Total War, 1939–1945. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Cobble, Dorothy S. 1992. Dishing It Out: Waitresses and Their Unions in the Twentieth Century. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.10.5406/j.ctt3fh3vhCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cobble, Dorothy S. 2004. The Other Women's Movement: Workplace Justice and Social Rights in Modern America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Cobble, Dorothy S. 2014a. “More than Sex Equality: Feminism after Suffrage.” In Feminism Unfinished: A Short, Surprising History of American Women's Movements, eds. Cobble, Dorothy Sue, Gordon, Linda, & Henry, Anne, 1–68. New York: W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
Cobble, Dorothy Sue, with Bowes, Julia. 2014b. “Esther Peterson.” American National Biography On-Line. http://www.anb.org. Accessed July 10, 2015.Google Scholar
Cohen, Lizabeth. 2003. A Consumer's Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Collins, Gail. 2009. When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present. New York, Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Cook, Blanche Wiesen. 1999. Eleanor Roosevelt, Vol. I: 1884–1933. New York: Viking.Google Scholar
Coontz, Stephanie. 1992. The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Dawley, Alan. 1991. Struggles for Social Justice: Social Responsibility and the Liberal State. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Dawley, Alan. 2003. Changing the World: American Progressives in War and Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.10.1515/9781400850594CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diner, Steven J. 1998. A Very Different Age: Americans in the Progressive Era. New York: Hill and Wang.Google Scholar
Femia, Joseph. 1975. “Hegemony and Consciousness in the Thought of Antonio Gramsci.” Political Studies 23: 29–48.10.1111/j.1467-9248.1975.tb00044.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foner, Eric. 1999. The Story of American Freedom. New York: W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
Fraser, Brian, and Gerstle, Gary, eds. 1989. The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order, 1930–1980. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Gerstle, Gary. 2015. Liberty and Coercion: The Paradox of American Government from the Founding to the Present. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Glickman, Lawrence B. 2009. Buying Power: A History of Consumer Activism in America Chicago: University of Chicago Press.10.7208/chicago/9780226298665.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldmark, Josephine. 1953. Impatient Crusader: Florence Kelley's Life Story. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Goodnow, Frank J. 1900. Politics and Administration: The Study of Government. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Gramsci, Antonio. 1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci. Hoare, Q. & Smith, G. N., Trans. New York: International.Google Scholar
Gramsci, Antonio. 1987. Selections from Prison Notebooks. New York: International.Google Scholar
Gramsci, Antonio. 1991. Selections from Cultural Writings. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gramsci, Antonio. 1992. Prison Notebooks: Volume I. Buttigieg, J. A., Trans. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Gramsci, Antonio. 1993. The Southern Question. Verdicchio, P., Trans. & Intro. West Lafayette, IN: Bordigher.Google Scholar
Gramsci, Antonio. 1996. Prison Notebooks: Volume II. Buttigieg, J. A., Trans. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Gramsci, Antonio. 2007. Prison Notebooks: Volume III. Buttigieg, J. A., Trans. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Harootunian, Harry. 2015. Marx after Marx: History and Time in the Expansion of Capitalism. New York: Columbia University Press.10.7312/haro17480CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrison, Cynthia. 1988. On Account of Sex: The Politics of Women's Issues, 1945–1968. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Hawkins, Mike. 1997. Social Darwinism in European and American Thought, 1860–1945. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511558481CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Height, Dorothy. 2003. Open Wide the Freedom Gates: A Memoir. New York: Public Affairs.Google Scholar
Higginbotham, Evelyn Brooks. 1990. “In Politics to Stay: Black Women Leaders and Party Politics in the 1940s.” In Women: Politics and Change, eds. Tilly, Louise and Griffin, Paula, 199–220, New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Hofstadter, Richard. 1992. Social Darwinism in American Thought (Foner, E., Intr.) Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Hounshell, David A. 1984. From the American System to Mass Production, 1800–1932. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Izzo, Amanda. 2018. Liberal Christianity and Women's Global Activism: The YWCA of the USA and the Maryknoll Sisters. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.10.2307/j.ctt1t6p7hzCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jamison, Andrew, and Eyerman, Ron. 1994. Seeds of the Sixties. Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Johnson, David K. 2003. The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Homosexuals and Lesbians in the Federal Government. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.10.7208/chicago/9780226401966.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kessler-Harris, Alice. 2001. In Pursuit of Equity: Women, Men, and the Quest for Economic Citizenship in 20th Century America. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Klein, Jennifer. 2004. For All These Rights: Business, Labor, and the Shaping of America's Public-Private Welfare State. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Kloppenberg, James T., and Fox, Richard Wrightman. 1997. A Companion to American Thought. New York: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Laughlin, Kristin A. 2000. Women's Work and Public Policy: A History of the Women's Bureau, U.S. Department of Labor. Boston: Northeastern University Press.Google Scholar
Letherby, G. 2003. Feminist Research in Theory and Practice. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press.Google Scholar
Lichenstein, Nelson. 1995. The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit: Walter Reuther and the Fate of American Labor. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Lindenmeyer, Kriste. 1997. “A Right to Childhood”: The U.S. Children's Bureau and Child Welfare, 1912–46. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Luton, Larry S. 1999. “History and American Public Administration.” Administration & Society 31: 205–21.10.1177/00953999922019094CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luton, Larry S. 2003. “Administrative State and Society: A Case Study of the United States of America.” In Handbook of Public Administration, eds. Peters, B. G. & Pierre, J., 69–177. New York: Sage.Google Scholar
Lynn, Susan. 1994. “Gender and Progressive Politics: A Bridge of Social Activism of the 1960s.” In Not June Cleaver: Women and Gender in Postwar America, 1945–1960. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Martin, George. 1976. Madam Secretary: Frances Perkins. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Marx, Karl. 1977. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol I. B. Fowkes, Trans. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Marx, Karl, and Engels, Friedrich. 1989. “Excerpts from the German Ideology. In Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy, ed. Feuer, L. S., 246–61. New York: Anchor Books.Google Scholar
Materson, Lisa G. 2009. For the Freedom of Her Race: Black Women and Electoral Politics in Illinois. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
McElvaine, Robert. 1993. The Great Depression: 1929–1941. New York: Times Books.Google Scholar
McGerr, Michael. 2005. A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
McGuire, J.T. 2004. “From the Courts to the State Legislatures: Social Justice Feminism, Labor Legislation and the 1920s.” Labor History 45: 225–46.10.1080/0023656042000217264CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mead, Margaret, and Kaplan, Frances Bagley, eds. 1965. American Women: The Report of the President's Commission on the Status of Women and Other Publications of the Commission. New York: Scribners.Google Scholar
Molotsky, Irvin. 1997. “Esther Peterson Dies at 91; Worked to Help Consumers.” New York Times, December 22. http://www.nytimes.com/1997/12/22/us/esther-peterson-dies-at-91-worked-to-help-consumers.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm. Accessed March 16, 2016.Google Scholar
Montgomery, David A. 1980. Frieda Miller. In American Women: The Modern Period, eds. Sicherman, B. and Hurd, C., 478–9. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Muller v. Oregon. 1908. 208 US 412.Google Scholar
O'Farrell, Brigid. 2006. “Esther Peterson.” In Encyclopedia of US Labor and Working-Class history Vol. III, ed. Arnesen, E., 1078–9. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Orleck, Annelise. 1995. Common Sense and a Little Fire: Women and Working-Class Politics in The United States. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
People v. Charles Schweinler Press. 1915. 214 NY 395.Google Scholar
Perkins, Frances. 1929. “Address at Testimonial Luncheon in [Frances Perkins's] Honor …,” Typed copy in Frances Perkins Papers Box 44, “Speeches, 1929–1930.” Rare Book and Manuscript Collection, Butler Library, Columbia University, New York.Google Scholar
Peterson, Esther, with Conkling., Winifred 1995. Restless: The Memoirs of Labor and Consumer Activist Esther Peterson. Washington, DC: Caring Publishing.Google Scholar
Poole, Mary. 2006. Segregated Origins of Social Security: African Americans and the Welfare State. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.10.5149/uncp/9780807856888CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Presidential Commission on the Status of Women PCSW 1963. “Transcript of Consultation on Minority Groups, April 19, 1963,” PCSW Papers, Reel 3, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Boston, MA.Google Scholar
Raadschelders, Jos C. N. 2010. “Is American Public Administration Detached from Historical Context?” American Review of Public Administration 40: 235–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reeves, Richard. 1993. John F. Kennedy: Profile in Power. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Roberts, Alasdair. 1994. “Demonstrating Neutrality: The Rockefeller Philanthropies and the Revolution of Public Administration, 1927–1936.” Public Administration Review 54: 221–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roosevelt, Franklin D. 1938. The Public Papers of Franklin D. Roosevelt, with a Special Introduction and Explanatory Notes by President Roosevelt. Vol. III: The Advance of Recovery and Reform. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Rosalind. 2017. Jane Crow: The Life of Pauli Murray. New York, London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rupp, Leila J., and Taylor, Verta. 1987. Survival in the Doldrums: The American Women's Movement, 1945 to the 1960s. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Scharf, Lois. 1980. To Work and to Wed: Female Employment, Feminism, and the Great Depression. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Schneiderman, Rose. 1926. “Extracts from Address Delivered … Before the Women's Industrial Conference … Jan. 20, 1926: The Right to Citizenship.” Mary van Kleeck Papers, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, Box 71, Folder 1171.Google Scholar
Scranton, Philip. 1997. Endless Novelty: Specialty Production and American Industrialization, 1865–1923. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sklar, Kathryn Kish. 1995. Florence Kelley and the Nation's Work: The Rise of Women's Political Culture, 1830–1900. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Sklar, Kathryn Kish. 1998. “Introduction.” In Social Justice Feminists: A Dialogue in Documents, 1885–1933, eds. Sklar, Kathryn Kish, Schuler, Anja, and Strasser, Susan, 1–78. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Stebenne, David L. 1996. Arthur J. Goldberg: New Deal Liberal. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Stillman, Robert. 2005. “Introduction.” Public Administration: Cases and Concepts, 8th ed., pp. 17–29. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Stillman, Robert. 2015. “Preface.” In Public Administration Evolving: From Foundations to the Future, eds. Guy, M. E. and Rubin, M. M., 1–3. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Storrs, Landon R. Y. 2000. Civilizing Capitalism: The National Consumers’ League, Women's Activism and Labor Standards in the New Deal. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Storrs, Landon R. Y. 2013. The Second Red Scare and the Unmaking of the New Deal Left. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Strebeigh, Fred. 2009. Equal: Women Reshape American Law. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Tannant, Shirley A. 2006. When Sex Became Gender. New York, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Trattner, Walter I. 1999. From Poor Law to Welfare State, 6th ed.New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Urofsky, Melvyn. 2015. Dissent in the Supreme Court: Its Role in the Court’s History and the Nation’s Constitutional Dialogue. New York: Vintage.Google Scholar
Urry, James. 1981. The Anatomy of Capitalist Societies: The Economy, Civil Society, and the State. London: Macmillan.10.1007/978-1-349-16506-3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ware, Susan. 1981. Beyond Suffrage: Women in the New Deal. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Ware, Susan. 1987. Partner and I. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Weisbode, Kenneth. 2016. The Year of Indecision, 1946: A Tour through the Crucible of Harry Truman's America. New York: Viking.Google Scholar
White, Deborah Gray. 1999. Too Heavy a Load: Black Women in Defense of Themselves: 1894– 1994. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Wilson, Woodrow. 1887. “The Study of Administration.” Political Science Quarterly 2: 197–222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woloch, Nancy. 1996. Muller v. Oregon: A Study in Documents. New York: Bedford and Martin.Google Scholar