Women’s Associations in the United States

Abstract

While many observers predicted the decline of American women’s sex-segregated associations in the aftermath of the extension of suffrage, this chapter explores the methods these groups used to claim legitimacy in public life. It explains that offering American women a respectable pathway to public activism was particularly important in the post-war period which celebrated women’s domesticity and place in the private sphere. This chapter explores the ways in which American women’s associations were able to fend off accusations of communist sympathy, by establishing themselves as quasi-governmental groups, and defining their goals as non-partisan. This public legitimacy, however, depended on private networks of white privilege, informed by a long history of racial segregation. This chapter reviews that history, and establishes the difficulties American women’s associations would face in engaging with the issue of racial integration.