How Women Saved the City

by Daphne Spain

In the days between the Civil War and World War I, women rarely worked outside the home, rarely went to college, and, if our histories are to be believed, rarely put their mark on the urban spaces unfolding around them. And yet, as this book clearly demonstrates, women did play a key role in shaping the American urban landscape. To uncover the contribution of women to urban development during this period, Daphne Spain looks at the places where women participated most actively in public life-voluntary organizations like the Young Women's Christian Association, the Salvation Army, the College Settlements Association, and the National Association of Colored Women. In the extensive building projects of these associations-boarding houses, vocational schools, settlement houses, public baths, and playgrounds-she finds clear evidence of a built environment created by women. Exploring this environment, Spain reconstructs the story of the "redemptive places" that addressed the real needs of city dwellers-especially single women, African-Americans, immigrants, and the poor-and established an environment in which newcomers could learn to become urban Americans. Daphne Spain is professor in the Department of Urban and Environmental Planning at the University of Virginia.

Genres: History, Urban Planning, Nonfiction, Cities

332 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Daphne Spain is an American academic who studies urban and environmental planning. Ms. Spain's scholarship addresses the relationship between the built environment and social structure, with an emphasis on gender. A long-term research interest is the way in which groups of women change the urban environment. Her books include Constructive Feminism: Building Women's Rights into the City, Gendered Spaces, and How Women Saved the City.

Reviews

[Whitney Stohr · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recommend this book to anyone interested in women's history in the United States, particularly the time period before, and leading up to, suffrage. The author provides a detailed account of women's participation in voluntary associations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and examines how women's involvement in associations shaped both their personal identity and contributed to major reform in America's largest cities.

[Michele · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s rare that I read a book on loan from the library and decide that I need a copy of my own. This book is a treasure trove of place-based history of women’s role in changing America.

[Opinionated Hijabi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was recommended to me by a professor while I was proposing my research accepted for a Fulbright Fellowship to study gender and culture. Daphne Spain does an amazing job of blending history and an anthropological or cultural history showing how our ideas about the social mores of society can change through challenging social norms of the time.

[Stacie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read selections from this. Interesting look at the role of women in social services and how that impacted the look and feel of cities as well as the services provided by governments.

[Karen]

* Understanding Oppression: Women's Rights (Then and Now)