Description
Book SynopsisPresents the story of Albion Fellows Bacon, Indiana's foremost 'municipal housekeeper'.
Trade ReviewBarrows (history, Indiana Univ.—Indianapolis, and coeditor of the Encyclopedia of Indianapolis, 1994) provides new insight into the Progressive era and sheds light on the multiple roles women played in turn—of—the—century reform efforts. Married with children and dissatisfied and ill in a life of Victorian nubile bliss, Bacon developed a sensitivity to the less fortunate trapped in sweatshops and packed into filthy tenements. Her evolving social conscience, reinforced by the social gospel, led her down many reformist paths to earn the title of Indiana's municipal housekeeper; this epithet is a term for activist women who applied their .. domestic skills to social problems plaguing their communities. A writer, speaker, legislative lobbyist, civic leader, mother, and wife, Bacon packed it all in; to read of her many accomplishments is to understand more clearly Progressivism and the role of women within it. It is a good companion to Allen F. Davis's American Heroine: The Life and Legend of Jane Addams (CH, Jan'74) and is highly recommended for those with interests in regional, political, social, cultural, and women's history. Photographs; notes; select bibliography; and index.April 2001
-- P. D. Travis * Texas Woman's University *
Table of ContentsContents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1: The Sheltered Life
Chapter 2: The Clutch of the Thorns
Chapter 3: Ambassador of the Poor
Chapter 4: The Homes of Indiana
Chapter 5: Child Welfare
Chapter 6: City Plans and National Housing Standards
Chapter 7: Prose, Poetry, and Pageants
Chapter 8: Municipal Housekeeper and Inadvertent Feminist
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index
