The book that changed the consciousness of a country—and the world. Landmark, groundbreaking, classic—these adjectives barely describe the earthshaking and long-lasting effects of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique. This is the book that defined "the problem that has no name," that launched the Second Wave of the feminist movement, and has been awakening women and men with its insights into social relations, which still remain fresh, ever since. A national bestseller, with over 1 million copies sold.

Contemporary feminists are used to juggling many different identities at once, balancing affiliations based on race, nation, class, and sexuality. First-wave feminists also negotiated--or failed to negotiate--similar tensions in their international organizing. Using primary documents dating from the abolitionist movement to the Second World War, Maureen Moynagh and Nancy Forestell investigate the tensions inherent in organizing early transnational feminist movements. Documenting First Wave Feminisms: Volume 1 provides a historical framework to bring together voices of women both canonical and less well known, from Mary Wollstonecraft to Mabel Dove, who were active in feminist movements in all corners of the world. Suffrage, imperialism, citizenship, sexuality, and moral reform are shown to be key issues in a variety of exchanges across North America, Europe, the global south, and the Pan-Pacific region. This source book is as nuanced as first-wave feminism itself and will prove a valuable resource for studying women's rights in an increasingly globalized world.

Contemporary feminists are used to juggling many different identities at once, balancing affiliations based on race, nation, class, and sexuality. First-wave feminists also negotiated—or failed to negotiate—similar tensions in their international organizing. Using primary documents dating from the abolitionist movement to the Second World War, Maureen Moynagh and Nancy Forestell investigate the tensions inherent in organizing early transnational feminist movements. Documenting First Wave Feminisms: Volume 1 provides a historical framework to bring together voices of women both canonical and less well known, from Mary Wollstonecraft to Mabel Dove, who were active in feminist movements in all corners of the world. Suffrage, imperialism, citizenship, sexuality, and moral reform are shown to be key issues in a variety of exchanges across North America, Europe, the global south, and the Pan-Pacific region. This source book is as nuanced as first-wave feminism itself and will prove a valuable resource for studying women's rights in an increasingly globalized world.

This issue makes a stimulating contribution to the growing store of knowledge about the feminist movement which immediately preceded current ones. What emerges is the similarity of purpose between past and present movements; the task of seeking women's equal participation in the administration and work of the world, and that of liberating women from sexual slavery, and the basic commitment to expose the system of male power. A rich and varied collection of articles, this issue reflects both the achievements of current feminist historical research and the obstacles which stand in the way of the full development of such research.

A spirited defense of feminism, arguing that the lack of support for working mothers is less a failure of second-wave feminism than a rejection by reactionaries of the sweeping changes they campaigned for. When people discuss feminism, they often lament its failure to deliver on the promise that women can “have it all.” But as Kirsten Swinth argues in this provocative book, it is not feminism that has betrayed women, but a society that balked at making the far-reaching changes for which activists fought. Feminism’s Forgotten Fight resurrects the comprehensive vision of feminism’s second wave at a time when its principles are under renewed attack. Through compelling stories of local and national activism and crucial legislative and judicial battles, Swinth’s history spotlights concerns not commonly associated with the movement of the 1960s and 1970s. We see liberals and radicals, white women and women of color, rethinking gender roles and redistributing housework. They brought men into the fold, and together demanded bold policy changes to ensure job protection for pregnant women and federal support for child care. Many of the creative proposals they devised to reshape the workplace and rework government policy—such as guaranteed incomes for mothers and flex time—now seem prescient. Swinth definitively dispels the notion that second-wave feminists pushed women into the workplace without offering solutions to issues they faced at home. Feminism’s Forgotten Fight examines activists’ campaigns for work and family in depth, and helps us see how feminism’s opponents—not feminists themselves—blocked the movement’s aspirations. Her insights offer key lessons for women’s ongoing struggle to achieve equality at home and work.