Mothers of Feminism: The Story of Quaker Women in America (review)

BOOK REVIEWS Edited by Edwin B. Bronner Mothers ofFeminism: The Story ofQuaker Women in America. By Margaret Hope Bacon. San Francisco, California: Harper and Row, 1986. x, 273 pp. Illus., index. $16.95. Margaret Hope Bacon chose to write Mothers of Feminism for a general audience. That is to say, while she researched diligently in archives and provides us with an impressive scholarly apparatus in the back of her book, she relates the course of Quaker feminism since 1650 without entering deeply into scholarly debates within the field. For example, she has not tried to construct a precise definition of "Quaker woman", although some of the women she includes left their Quaker meetings and others were disowned. She does provide her readers with sufficient information in some cases so that they may attempt their own definitions. Because of this choice to reach a general audience the scope of the book is vast and encompassing, but, again, the author intended it to be so. She wishes us to come to terms with how often Quaker women broke paths for other women over the past three centuries. She succeeds at that task to a large extent. Except to a few well informed readers, some among the hundreds of Quaker women discussed will come as a surprise and so will their accomplishments. Five of the first eleven women physicians in the United States were Quakers (p. 156). Lydia Estes Pinkham may be easily recognized as a pioneer in business but Rebecca Pennock Lukens, manufacturing nineteenth century boilerplate for locomotives and steamships, broke ground in a less recognized walk of life. Bacon reserves most of her attention for that line of religious and political leaders who began with Margaret Fell and continue to this day in furthering reforms. She devotes some attention to why these women succeeded so well in their selfappointed tasks in the public sphere. Quaker ideas about equality in marriage and the primacy of a married woman's call to minister over all other duties receive attention. Women's business meetings are featured as valuable training ground for public roles and responsibilities. Women's close friendships and support networks within the Quaker community gain their share of recognition from the author also. Balancing this, Bacon reveals how difficult life was for a Quaker woman actively pursuing change in the world. Many bore large families of children along with their reform work or ministry. It would be interesting to learn if these Quaker women heard the call to travel and teach when their oldest children were of an age to carry responsibility for their younger siblings. Bacon arouses our curiosity as well about family planning in eighteenth century Quaker households. Given the scope of this work, Bacon does not devote pages to a thorough investigation of this issue. Perhaps by alerting readers to the question she will prompt others to investigate the problem in depth. With so many extraordinary individuals empowered by women's business meetings over the centuries, Bacon finds it necessary to address the problem of the reabsorption of women's meetings into general meetings with men in the 1920's. She states, "But the minutes of women's meetings give the impression that many of them were shallow and formal affairs . . . Not until the women had struggled for and achieved equal status did their meetings begin to develop strength and creativity" (p. 183). Bacon states the gist of her analysis here. Women struggled for every public right they exercised, and they repeated that struggle over and over, generation after generation. The Quaker community that on the one hand empowered women, on the other seldom allowed women 145 146Quaker History to build on the successful struggles of the previous generations as a foundation for further gains. Thus Quaker women have grown strong by pursuing their struggle for equality. Abolition, suffrage, temperance, women's education, and the peace movement which Quaker women led are the legacy of that on-going struggle. While feeling justifiable pride in the extraordinary accomplishments of these Quaker women, we must be open to the implications of Bacon's analysis. Is there a way to provide Quaker women today the opportunity to construct upon what has gone...