Dreamers of a New Day: Women Who Invented the Twentieth Century

by Sheila Rowbotham

Amid the growth of globalized trade, mass production, immigration and urban slums that dominated the period from the 1880s to the onset of the First World War, an awakening was taking place among American and British women. Across the Atlantic and across political boundaries—anarchists to liberals, feminists and non-feminists—female pioneers shared a sense that social change was possible, and acted upon that belief. Dreamers of a New Day explores a period, from the belle époque to the roaring twenties, when women overturned social norms and assumptions as they struggled to define themselves as individuals. Forming broad coalitions and movements, they transformed the conditions of their own lives, decades before the intellectuals of the 1960s conceptualized “everyday life” as an arena for radical activity.

Drawing on a wealth of original research, Sheila Rowbotham has written a groundbreaking new history examining how women came to be modern. Challenging existing conceptions of citizenship and culture, from ethical living to consumerism, sexuality to democracy, these dreamers shaped many of the issues that remain at the forefront of twenty-first-century life.

Genres: Feminism, History, Nonfiction, Politics, Biography, Womens, Cultural

320 pages, Hardcover

First published June 15, 2010

About the author

Sheila Rowbotham is a British socialist feminist theorist and writer.

Rowbotham was born in Leeds (in present-day West Yorkshire), the daughter of a salesman for an engineering company and an office clerk. From an early age, she was deeply interested in history. She has written that traditional political history "left her cold", but she credited Olga Wilkinson, one of her teachers, with encouraging her interest in social history by showing that history "belonged to the present, not to the history textbooks".

Rowbotham attended St Hilda's College at Oxford and then the University of London. She began her working life as a teacher in comprehensive schools and institutes of higher or Adult education. While attending St. Hilda's College, Rowbotham found her syllabus with its heavy focus on political history to be of no interest to her. Through her involvement in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and various socialist circles including the Labour Party's youth wing, the Young Socialists, Rowbotham was introduced to Karl Marx's ideas. Already on the left, Rowbotham was converted to Marxism. Soon disenchanted with the direction of party politics she immersed herself in a variety of left-wing campaigns, including writing for the radical political newspaper Black Dwarf. In the 1960s, Rowbotham was one of the founders and leaders of the History Workshop movement associated with Ruskin College.

Towards the end of the 1960s she had become involved in the growing Women’s Liberation Movement (also known as Second-wave feminism) and, in 1969, published her influential pamphlet "Women's Liberation and the New Politics", which argued that Socialist theory needed to consider the oppression of women in cultural as well as economic terms. She was heavily involved in the conference Beyond the Fragments (eventually a book), which attempted to draw together democratic socialist and socialist feminist currents in Britain. Between 1983 and 1986, Rowbotham served as the editor of Jobs for Change, the newspaper of the Greater London Council.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Kristina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whew! The author’s sheer amount of research for this book is inspiring! She did a fantastic job of resurrecting obscure ladies from the turn of the century and brought their important accomplishments back into a modern light. The book focuses on various women’s movements from the late 1800s until 1930 in America, Britain, and their equivalents among the African-American population in America. Each chapter details a different topic from birth control to working conditions to technology. The life-changing impact of World War I is greatly emphasized (as it should be). The number of “isms” is staggering. It was difficult to keep track of all the feminists, socialists, anarchists, communists, etc. and I was genuinely surprised that there was a council, board, or organization for absolutely everything you could think of! Obviously many of the issues facing women today were around at the turn of the century but this book highlighted the accomplishments of many fearless ladies. I am glad to have read it, but be forewarned: this book is VERY dense and VERY academic. I am a fast reader and it took me forever to get through this one. Kudos to the author for her wealth of information; kudos to me for wading through it! 😜

[sevvalsinem · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Eastman 1920'de "kadınların özgürlüğü meselesi"nin "dünyayı, kadınların sonsuz yeteneklerini sonsuz yoldan kullanmalarını sağlayacak biçimde düzenleme" meselesi olduğunu söyledi. Bu "feminizmin tamamı" demek değildir, ama "başlamak için yeterli" diye açıkladı."

[Malcolm · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1891, the New York Consumers’ League, very much the product of the Working Women’s Society, drew up a list of stores to boycott for unfair labour practices in the production of their goods, but also a list to support for their ethical trading practices, while in 1890 the Women’s Trade Union League convinced the London County Council to include women clothing workers in the fair wages provision it imposed on its providers – consumer power and ethical trading practices from 120 years ago.

At a time when ‘austerity’ is being used as an excuse to roll back the advances made by working people and other oppressed groups, while people’s movements globally are working to find new ways of politics and new ways of struggle, Rowbotham’s work reminds us of the long years of campaigning and the depth of our history of a politics of change. She explicitly outlines the relevance and importance of this book in the conclusion: “societies are recreated in more ways than meets the eye. The mundane, the intimate, the individual moment of anger, the sense of association: all contribute to the fabric of daily life. The rediscovery of their lost heritage is revelatory, and not only because these energetic innovators dreamed up so much that we take for granted in the world. They also staked out a remarkably rich terrain of debate around questions which are equally vital today. How to renew the body politic; how to take account of specificities while maintaining a wider cohesion; how to allow for individuality while finding connection through relationships and social movements; how to combine inner perceptions with outer change; how to respect the insights and experience of the subordinated and still move from what is to something better; all these are as germane as they ever were.” (p240)

In exploring the lives and politics of women radicals and reformers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Rowbotham has taken us into the politics of struggle beyond women suffrage, important as it is, the drama and class basis of many of the leaders of the struggle have tended to overshadow other work by women – liberal, socialist, anarchist and other shades. The obscuring of these struggles hides women’s campaigns that lead to housing improvements, working class success and better lives, improved social conditions of existence, enhancements of reproductive knowledge and rights, and the political struggles of the everyday. Rowbotham acknowledges Dolores Hayden's excellent work on domestic design as an inspiration for this book: it s a worthy companion. Although she reminds us of how far we have come and how nearly everything we hold dear is the product of struggles the wrest away from the powerful, it is also a depressing reminder of both how far we have to go and how much we have forgotten.

[Tara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finely researched and well-written, with reference points for further study. Seeing issues of gender, class and racial equality converge at the dawn of the 20th century, both in Britain and America, provokes thoughts on the social unrest we're undergoing exactly a century later. It's also inspiring to see how creatively people respond to injustice at any given point in history. The only caveat I would add is that this probably isn't an ideal book for general readers (like me) - you'll get a lot more out of it if you have a specific interest in the feminist politics of the period.

[Gemma · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this short, punchy history of women in fin de siecle America and Britain. A solid 3.5.

[Jenny McPhee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Winnifred Harper Cooley, Ada Nield Chew, Mary Beard, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Emma Goldman, Jane Addams, Mary Church Terrell, Mona Caird, Ernestine Rose, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, Susan B. Anthony, Phillis Wheatley, Catherine Webb, Beatrice Webb, Charlotte Wilson, Mary Gawthorpe, Mary Ware Dennett, Octavia Hill, Margaret McMillan, Selina Cooper, Vida Scudder, Eleanor Marx Aveling, Annie Besant, Dora Montefiore, Olive Schreiner, Marie Jenny Howe, Nella Larsen, Voltairine de Cleyre, Edith Ellis, Elsie Clews Parsons, Suzanne La Follette, Rosa Graul, Angela Heywood, Lois Waisbrooker, Elmina Slenker, Margaret Sanger, Marie Stopes, Rose Witcop, Dora Russell, Eleanor Rathbone, Alice B. Stockham, Georgia Kotsch, Crystal Eastman, Helen Campbell, Mary Macarthur, Hannah Mitchell, Lillie D. White, Lizzie Homes, Clara Zetkin, Christine Frederick, Lillian Gilbreth, Sarah Lees, C. Helen Scott, Helena Borm, Miriam Daniell, Isabella Ford, Eleanor Rathbone, Anna Julia Cooper, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Olive Schreiner, Maggie Lena Walker, Ellen Gates Starr, Vida Dutton Scudder, Mabel Dodge Luhan, Darlene Clark Hine, Sylvia Pankhurst, Jane Hume Clapterton, Teresa Billington-Greig, Margaret Ashton…

These names represent only a fraction of the ordinary and extraordinary women, rich, middle class, poor, black, white, radical, conservative, liberal, socialist, communist who from the 1880s to the end of the 1920s in England and the United States, fought to reform, transform, and re-imagine every aspect of daily life. The agendas of these adventurous innovators were myriad, their policies and utopian ideals often incompatible, but their common goal was for an improved world economically, politically, socially, culturally, sexually, and spiritually, for women — and men. They advocated for the vote, equal pay, education, contraception, equal rights within a marriage, divorce, legalized abortion, free love, childcare, healthcare. They reconsidered their clothing, their role in the global economy, gender divisions, motherhood, housework, sex practices, language, even consciousness itself. Sheila Rowbotham’s unique and revelatory book Dreamers of a New Day: Women Who Invented the Twentieth Century is a seminal work of history profiling an astonishing number of visionary women who incontestably changed life as we know it — then were preeminently forgotten

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[S. Wigget · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is dry in spots--name and movement dropping--which reminds me why I prefer history books that are biographies. But of course, by mentioning women from the past, this book can inspire you to pick up biographies on those who sound most interesting.

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sorry I didn't get very far. Was a bit slow.

[Päivi Brink · Rating 4 out of 5]

Early feminism in England and America. Important work. Well written.

[Holly Cruise]

In Dreamers of a New Day, Sheila Rowbotham writes about the women who challenged convention and societal norms in Britain and the US between 1885 and 1920. All of them. She writes about every single one of them.

Ok, I'm being a tiny bit flippant. What I mean is that Rowbotham went DEEP on this topic and that's both the book's strength and its mild detriment. Her level of research, her breadth of inquiry and ability to weave all of these women and their various causes and approaches into one book is incredible. It's also sometimes overwhelming.

At its best, the book is a rushing wild river of information on how women challenged expectations and entrenched realities, winning some fights and losing others. The chapters on how they pushed for support for families, changed expectations around sex and family life, and interacted with the men in the working classes and industry were stuffed full of names, ideas and actions but flowed well and coherently. Some of the other chapters were a bit overwhelming, so much information and so many women covered.

This might be on me for reading it like I read most things, at a decent clip. It might be the sort of book which is better read slowly, taking notes on the interesting people mentioned in it. Perhaps because they got more mentions than other subjects, the names who stood out most to me were Dora Russell and Emma Goldman, and I do want to know more about them. The same is true of many of the women, and I think I will return to this in future to go through more methodically and find women who I can get more detailed sources on. So overall, if it's not the easiest read, it's certainly one of the best resources I've picked up on the topic.

[Shell · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I've ever read. A stunningly researched, thorough history of women's political and social involvement during the fin-de-siéclè. Extremely dense, slow going, but only because it's packed so full of examples and information. There are no wasted sentences. Definitely going to be a book I come back to over and over again and recommend to others researching this period.

[Laura del Alisal · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has been extremely helpful in my academic research. Often encyclopaedic, it's a must to understand women thinkers, writers and activists and their role in the world at the turn of the twentieth century.

[Aleafs28 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Çok iyi noktalara temas eden sağlam bir araştırma kitabı ancak zaman zaman ayrıntıların boğduğunu söylemem gerek, bir de Sel’den beklemediğim kadar sözcük yazım hataları var, zamanınız bol ise okunur , başladığım için devam ettim, güzel ama okumamış olmak kayıp değil.

[Barbara Joan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A brilliant source book for those interested in practical feminism at the outset of the 20th century.

[Zeynep · Rating 4 out of 5]

"... ama ben kadının dersini fazlasıyla iyi öğrenmesine karşıyım."

[Bookshark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Richly detailed, exhaustively researched, brilliant resurrection of our (socialist, anarchist, radical) feminist past. Every name Rowbotham drops is a rabbit hole - jump down a few of them, and you just might find yourself dreaming of a new day. My one real complaint is that she tries to pitch the regressive consumerist recapitulation and co-optation of Gilded Age and Progressive Dreams in the 1920s and 1930s as if it were still somehow transformative. But still, this book is an excellent resource for journeying into the radical thinking and practice of an era that is too-often forgotten.