Music in the Women's Institute has become stereotyped by the ritualistic singing of Jerusalem at monthly meetings. Indeed, Jerusalem has had an important role within the organization, and provides a valuable means within which to assess the organization's relationship with women's suffrage and the importance of rurality in the Women's Institute's identity. However, this book looks beyond Jerusalem by examining the full range of music making within the organization and locates its significance within a wider historical-cultural context. The Institute's promotion of conducting - a regular part of its musical activity since the 1930s - is discussed within the context of embodying overtly feminist sentiments. Lorna Gibson concludes that a redefinition of the term 'feminism' is needed and the concept of 'gendered spheres' of conducting provides a useful means of understanding the Institute's policy. The organization's promotion of folk song is also examined and reveals the Institute's contribution to the Folk Revival, as well as providing a valuable context within which to understand the National Federation's first music commission, Ralph Vaughan Williams's Folk Songs of the Four Seasons (1950). This work, and the Institute's second commission, Malcolm Williamson's The Brilliant and the Dark (1969), are examined with the context of the organization's music policy. In addition to discussing the background to the works, issues of critical reception are addressed. The book concludes with an Epilogue about the National Society Choir (later known as the Avalon Singers), which tested the organization's commitment to amateur music making. The book is the result of meticulous work undertaken in the archives of the National Federation, the BBC Written Archives Centre, the V&A archives, the Britten-Pears Library, the Ralph Vaughan Williams Library, the Women's Library and the Newspaper Library.

The lives of Chicago workers are traced in the mid thirties to reveal how their experiences as citizens, members of ethnic or racial groups, wage earners and consumers, converged to transform them into New Deal Democrats and CIO unionists.

First Published in 1996. Those of us who aspire to know about the black church in the African-American experience are never satisfied. We know so much more about the Christian and church life of black Americans than we did even a dozen years ago, but all the recent discoveries whet our insatiable appetites to know it all. That goal will never be attained, of course, but there do remain many conquerable worlds. Sherry Sherrod DuPree set her mind to conquering one of those worlds. She has persisted, with the results detailed here. A huge number of items are available to inform us about Holiness, Pentecostal, and Charismatic congregations and organizations in the African-American Christian community.

A History of the Indiana Farm Bureau 1919-1999. (From the book) “Hoosier Farmers. . . Era of Change traces our grassroots to global interests for the last 30 years. Our organization’s history from the late 1960s to nearly 2000 is a whirlwind of adapting to agriculture’s changing ways.”