Home Work - Gender, Child Labor, Education for Girls in Urban America, 18701930

"How reforms to girlhood education in the Progressive Era cemented inequalities of gender, race, and class in urban school systems. In Home Work, historian Ruby Oram tells the story of how middle-class, white women reformers lobbied the state to implement various public education reforms to shape the lives of girls and women in industrial cities between 1870 and 1930. Women such as Jane Addams and Florence Kelley used education reform to target working-class communities and advocate for their middle-class ideals of girlhood and femininity, which could vary depending on the racial or socio-economic backgrounds of the girls. For example, reformers generally encouraged white girls to care for their future families, while pushing Black girls toward becoming domestic workers in others' homes. Using Chicago as a case study, Oram also explores how many of the reforms sought by white women were in response to evolving anxieties about immigration, health, and sexual delinquency. An illuminating addition to the history of urban education in America, Home Work enriches our understanding of educational inequality in twentieth-century schools"--

About the author

Ruby Oram is assistant professor of practice in the Department of History at Texas State University.

Product details

• Authors: Ruby Oram, Ruby Oram
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Release: 25.11.2025
• EAN: 9780226844336
• ISBN: 978-0-226-84433-6
• No. of pages: 272
• Series: Historical Studies of Urban America
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Education > General, dictionaries; Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; USA, 20th Century, EDUCATION / History, Social & cultural history, 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000, HISTORY / United States / 20th Century, HISTORY / Women, 20th century, c 1900 to c 1999, History of Education, Social and cultural history, United States of America, USA, Gender studies: women, History of the Americas, Gender studies: women and girls