The Moral Frameworks of Public Life: Gender, Politics, and the State in Rural New York, 1870-1930
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Author Description
This book explores the connections between gender and public life and the role of government in shaping those connections. Baker examines the public and private lives of men and women in New York State to provide a richly detailed account of the ways in which gender, politics, and government have shaped one anothers' future. She delineates widely held beliefs about religion, change, and work in the late nineteenth century and shows how men and women applied these ideas to politics in different ways. The increasing importance of state government in rural life helped recast men's and women's political ideas and behavior. Baker's close reading of the writings of rural men and women and the work of local and state government provides new insights into the achievement of the suffrage movement, the fate of the nineteenth-century ideal of domesticity, the decline of localism, and the importance of government to people's political expectations and daily lives.
Menrva's Summary
THE THESIS
This book investigates how the intersection of gender roles and the expanding influence of state government fundamentally restructured public life and political expectations in rural New York between 1870 and 1930. Paula Baker, a historian specializing in American political development, utilizes primary source documents, including personal writings and local government records, to argue that the transition from localism to state-centered governance forced a re-evaluation of domesticity and political participation. By analyzing the divergent ways men and women interpreted religious and labor-related beliefs, the author demonstrates how these shifting frameworks facilitated the eventual success of the suffrage movement and the modernization of rural society.
THE SCOPE MAP
What You Will Find
- Analysis of the transition from local political structures to state-level governance in New York.
- Examination of gender-specific interpretations of religion, work, and social change.
- Primary source research derived from the personal writings and correspondence of rural residents.
- Historical assessment of the decline of localism and the evolution of the domestic ideal.
THE AUTHORITY PERSPECTIVE
Historians frequently cite this work as a significant contribution to the study of American political culture and gender history. Scholars note the author's ability to synthesize local archival data into a broader argument regarding the structural transformation of the American state.
Page Count:
280
Publication Date:
1991-03-07
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0195064526
ISBN-13:
9780195064520
History
Political Activity
Gender Studies
Sociology
American History
New York
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