New Paths to Power: American Women 1890-1920

In the 30 years from 1890 to 1920—a period known as the Progressive Era—an eager and purposeful generation of American women swept out of the house and marched onto a new stage of freedom and responsibility. Many of them tried to improve their world by seeking work to better provide for themselves and their families or by tackling social problems that affected the country as a whole.
Girls and women (many of them immigrants or the daughters of immigrants) swelled the growing ranks of wage…