Social Justice Feminism and its Counter-Hegemonic Response to Laissez-Faire Industrial Capitalism and Patriarchy in the United States, 1899-1940
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26522/ssj.v11i1.1358Keywords:
Social justice feminism, Antonio Gramsci, hegemony & counter-hegemony, historical sociology, feminist agencyAbstract
This article uses the hegemonic/counter-hegemonic framework of Italian scholar and activist Antonio Gramsci to explain how a movement known as social justice feminism emerged as a counter-hegemonic response to two hegemonic concepts established in and continued, respectively, the post-Civil War United States: laissez-faire industrial capitalism and patriarchal dominance. In four stages from 1899 through 1940, social justice feminists pursued the promotion of an “entering wedge” labor legislation strategy and the increasing participation of women in national politics, particularly in the Democratic Party. While substantially successful in its goals, social justice feminism failed in two important aspects: its inability to work independently of a patriarchal political system, and, most significant, its apparent refusal to include women of color.
References
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Adkins v. Children’s Hospital, 261 U.S. 525 (1923). Retrieved from https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/261/525/case.html
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Bates, T. R. (1975). Gramsci and the theory of hegemony. Journal of the History of Ideas, 36(2), 351-366.
Bunting v. Oregon, 243 U.S. 426 (1917). Retrieved from https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/243/426/case.html
Chafe, W. (2003). The unfinished journey: America since World War II (5th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
Cobble, D. S. (2005). The other women’s movement: Workplace justice and social rights in modern America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Cobble, D. S. (2014). More than sex equality: Feminism after suffrage. In D. S. Cobble, L. Gordon & A. Henry (Eds.), Feminism unfinished: A short, surprising history of American women’s movements (pp. 1-68). New York: W.W. Norton.
Cohen, L. (2003). A consumer’s republic: The politics of mass consumption in postwar America. New York: Knopf.
Collins, G. (2009). When everything changed: the amazing journey of American women from 1960 to the present. New York: Little, Brown & Co.
Costin, L. B. (2003). Two sisters for social justice: A biography of Grace and Edith Abbott. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Cott, N. F. (Ed.). (2000). No small courage: A History of women in the United States. New York, London: Oxford University Press.
Dawley, A. (1991). Struggles for social justice: Social responsibility and the liberal state. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Dawley, A. (2003). Changing the world: American progressives in war and revolution. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Diner, S. A. (1998). A very different age: Americans of the progressive era. New York: Hill & Wang.
Domenic, G. & Levy, D. (2016). The crisis of neoliberalism. In S. Springer, K. Birch & J. MacLeavy (Eds.), The handbook of neoliberalism. (pp. 115-130). New York: Routledge
Femia J. (1975). Hegemony and consciousness in the thought of Antonio Gramsci. Political Studies, 23, 29-48.
Fox, R. W, & Kloppenberg, J. T. (Eds.) (1998), A companion to American political thought. New York: Wiley.
Freedman, L. (2015). Strategy: A history. New York & London: Oxford University Press.
Freeman, E. (1979). Separatism as strategy: Female institution building and American feminism, 1870-1930. Feminist Studies, 5(3), 512-529.
Gramsci, A. (1971) Selections from the prison notebooks of Antonio Gramsci. (Q. Hoare & G. N. Smith, Trans.). New York: International Publishers.
Gramsci, A. (1987). Selections from prison notebooks. New York: International.
Gramsci, A. (1991). Selections from cultural writings. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Gramsci, A. (1992). Prison notebooks: Volume I. (J. A. Buttigieg, Trans.). New York: Columbia University Press.
Gramsci, A. (1993). The southern question. (P. Verdicchio, Trans. & Intro.). West Lafayette, IN: Bordighera.
Gramsci, A. (1996). Prison notebooks: Volume II. (J. A. Buttigieg, Trans.). New York: Columbia University Press.
Gramsci, A. (2007). Prison notebooks: Volume III. (J. A. Buttigieg, Trans.). New York: Columbia University Press.
Hawkins, M. (1997). Social Darwinism in European and American thought, 1860-1945: Nature as model and nature as threat. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hayes, P. (1988). American nuclear hegemony in Korea. Journal of Peace Research, 25(4), 351-364.
Held, D., & Young, K. (2011). Crises in parallel worlds: The governance of global risks in finance, security, and the environment. In C. Calhoun & G. Draunguian (Eds.), The deepening crisis: Governance challenges after neoliberalism. (pp. 19-42). New York: New York University Press.
Higginbotham, E. B. (1990). In politics to stay: Black women leaders and party politics in the 1940s. In L. Tilly & P. Griffin (Eds.), Women, politics and change. (pp. 199-220). New York: Russell Sage Foundation Press.
Hofstadter, R. (1992). Social Darwinism in American thought. (E. Foner, Intr.). Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Harootunian, H. (2015). Marx After Marx: History and time in the expansion of capitalism. New York: Columbia University Press.
Hounsell, D. A. (1984). From the American system to mass production, 1800-1932. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Kaslem, K., & Williams, V. (2010) Social justice feminism. UCLA Women’s Law Journal, 18, 131-150.
Kenway, J. (2002). Remembering and regenerating Gramsci. In K. Wesser (Ed.), Feminist engagements: Revisiting and revisioning male theorists in education and cultural studies (pp. 155-170). New York & London: Routledge.
Kelly, R. E. (2014, February 10). What would Chinese hegemony look like. The Diplomat. Retrieved from http://thediplomat.com/2014/02/what-would-chinese-hegemony-look-like/
King, M. (2016). The end of alchemy: Money, banking, and the future of the global economy. New York: W. W. Norton.
Lachmann, R. (2013). What is historical sociology? New York: Polity Press.
Ledwith, M. (2009). Antonio Gramsci and feminism: The elusive nature of power. Educational Philosophy &Theory, 41(6), 684-697.
Lenin, V. I. (1960a). The economic consent of narodism and the criticism of it in Mr. Struve’s book. In Collected Works, Vol. I. London: Lawrence & Wishart.
Lenin, V. I. (1960b). The development of capitalism in Russia. In Collected Works, Vol. 3. London: Lawrence & Wishart.
Letherby, G. (2003). Feminist research in theory and practice. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press.
Marx, K. (1977). Capital: A critique of political economy. Vol I. (B. Fowkes, Trans.)
New York: Vintage Books.
Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1989) “Excerpts from The German Ideology.” In L. S. Feuer (Ed). Basic writings on politics and philosophy (pp. 246-261). New York: Anchor Books.
Materson, L. G. (2009). For the freedom of the race: Black women and electoral politics in Illinois. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
McElvaine, R. (1993). The Great Depression: America, 1929-1941. New York: Times Books.
McGerr, M. (2005). A fierce discontent: The rise and fall of the progressive movement in America. New York: Oxford University Press.
McGuire, J. T. (2001). A catalyst for reform: The Women’s Joint Legislative Conference (WJLC) and its fight for labor legislation in New York State, 1918-1933. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). State University of New York at Binghamton, Binghamton, NY.
McGuire, J. T. (2004). From the courts to the state legislatures: Social justice feminism, labor legislation and the 1920s. Labor History, 45(2), 225-246.
McGuire, J. T. 2006. Making the case for night work legislation in progressive era New York, 1911-1915. Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, 5(1), 47-70.
McGuire, J. T. (2011a). Continuing an alternative view of public administration: Mary van Kleeck and industrial citizenship, 1918-1927. Administration & Society, 43(1), 66-86.
McGuire, J. T. (2012a). Gender & the personal shaping of public administration: Mary Anderson and the Women’s Bureau, 1920-1930. Public Administration Review, 72(2), 265-271.
McGuire, J. T. (2012b). The boundaries of democratic reform: Social justice feminism and race in the South, 1931-1939. Journal of Southern History, 78 (4), 887-912.
McGuire, J. T. (2013). Working within the labyrinth of race: Crystal Bird Fauset, urban African-American women, and the National Democratic Party, 1934-1944. Journal of Urban History 39(2), 172-192.
McGuire, J. T. (2014). Beginning an “extraordinary opportunity:” Eleanor Roosevelt, Molly Dewson, and the expansion of women’s boundaries in the Democratic Party, 1924-1934. Women’s History Review 23(6), 922-937.
Muller v. Oregon, 208 U.S. 412 (1908). Retrieved from https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/208/412/case.html
Oxford English Dictionary. (2015). Hegemony. Retrieved 21 December 2015 from www/oed.com
People v. Schweinler Press, 214 N.Y. 395 (1915).
Perkins, F. (1929). Address at Testimonial Luncheon in [Frances Perkins’s] Honor …, typed copy in Frances Perkins Papers (Box 44, “Speeches, 1929–1930”). Rare Book and Manuscript Collection, Butler Library, Columbia University, New York.
Reed, J. P. (2013). Theorist of subaltern subjectivity: Antonio Gramsci, popular beliefs, political passion, and reciprocal learning. Critical Sociology 39(4), 561-591.
Schneiderman, R. (1926). Extracts from address delivered by Miss Rose Schneiderman before the Women’s Industrial Conference … Jan. 20, 1926: The right to citizenship. Mary van Kleeck Papers (Box 71, Folder 1171). Smith College, Northampton, MA.
Scranton, P. (1997). Endless novelty: Specialty production and American industrialization, 1865-1925. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Simon, R. (1982) Gramsci’s political thought: An introduction. London: Lawrence and Wishart.
Sklar, K. K. (1995). Florence Kelley and the nation’s work: The rise of women’s political culture, 1830-1900. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Sklar, K. K., Schuler, A., & Strasser, S. (1998). Introduction. In K. K. Sklar, A. Schuler & S. Strasser (Eds.), Social justice feminists in the United States and Germany: A dialogue in documents, 1885–1933 (pp. 4-5). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press).
Synamon, B., with Fazzari, S. M., & Setterfeld, M. (2013). After the Great Recession: The struggle for economic recovery and growth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Urofsky, M. (1992). Bunting v. Oregon. In The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States. New York, London: Oxford University Press.
Urry, J. (1981). The anatomy of capitalist societies. London: Macmillan.
Van der Pijl, K. (2003). Gramsci and Left Managerialism. Critical Review of International Political & Social Ideology, 8(4): 499-511.
Ware, S. (1987). Partner and I. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
White, D. G. (1999). Too heavy a load: Black women in defense of themselves, 1894-1994. New York: Norton.
Wiebe, R. (1967). The search for order, 1877-1920. New York: Scribners.
Williams, R. (1977). Marxism and literature. New York: Oxford University Press.
Woloch, N. (1998). Muller v. Oregon: A brief history with documents. New York: Bedford.
Adkins v. Children’s Hospital, 261 U.S. 525 (1923). Retrieved from https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/261/525/case.html
Aronowitz, S. (2009). Gramsci’s concept of political organization. In J. Francese (Ed.), Perspectives on Gramsci: Politics, culture, and social theory (pp. 7-19). New York: Routledge.
Bates, T. R. (1975). Gramsci and the theory of hegemony. Journal of the History of Ideas, 36(2), 351-366.
Bunting v. Oregon, 243 U.S. 426 (1917). Retrieved from https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/243/426/case.html
Chafe, W. (2003). The unfinished journey: America since World War II (5th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
Cobble, D. S. (2005). The other women’s movement: Workplace justice and social rights in modern America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Cobble, D. S. (2014). More than sex equality: Feminism after suffrage. In D. S. Cobble, L. Gordon & A. Henry (Eds.), Feminism unfinished: A short, surprising history of American women’s movements (pp. 1-68). New York: W.W. Norton.
Cohen, L. (2003). A consumer’s republic: The politics of mass consumption in postwar America. New York: Knopf.
Collins, G. (2009). When everything changed: the amazing journey of American women from 1960 to the present. New York: Little, Brown & Co.
Costin, L. B. (2003). Two sisters for social justice: A biography of Grace and Edith Abbott. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Cott, N. F. (Ed.). (2000). No small courage: A History of women in the United States. New York, London: Oxford University Press.
Dawley, A. (1991). Struggles for social justice: Social responsibility and the liberal state. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Dawley, A. (2003). Changing the world: American progressives in war and revolution. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Diner, S. A. (1998). A very different age: Americans of the progressive era. New York: Hill & Wang.
Domenic, G. & Levy, D. (2016). The crisis of neoliberalism. In S. Springer, K. Birch & J. MacLeavy (Eds.), The handbook of neoliberalism. (pp. 115-130). New York: Routledge
Femia J. (1975). Hegemony and consciousness in the thought of Antonio Gramsci. Political Studies, 23, 29-48.
Fox, R. W, & Kloppenberg, J. T. (Eds.) (1998), A companion to American political thought. New York: Wiley.
Freedman, L. (2015). Strategy: A history. New York & London: Oxford University Press.
Freeman, E. (1979). Separatism as strategy: Female institution building and American feminism, 1870-1930. Feminist Studies, 5(3), 512-529.
Gramsci, A. (1971) Selections from the prison notebooks of Antonio Gramsci. (Q. Hoare & G. N. Smith, Trans.). New York: International Publishers.
Gramsci, A. (1987). Selections from prison notebooks. New York: International.
Gramsci, A. (1991). Selections from cultural writings. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Gramsci, A. (1992). Prison notebooks: Volume I. (J. A. Buttigieg, Trans.). New York: Columbia University Press.
Gramsci, A. (1993). The southern question. (P. Verdicchio, Trans. & Intro.). West Lafayette, IN: Bordighera.
Gramsci, A. (1996). Prison notebooks: Volume II. (J. A. Buttigieg, Trans.). New York: Columbia University Press.
Gramsci, A. (2007). Prison notebooks: Volume III. (J. A. Buttigieg, Trans.). New York: Columbia University Press.
Hawkins, M. (1997). Social Darwinism in European and American thought, 1860-1945: Nature as model and nature as threat. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hayes, P. (1988). American nuclear hegemony in Korea. Journal of Peace Research, 25(4), 351-364.
Held, D., & Young, K. (2011). Crises in parallel worlds: The governance of global risks in finance, security, and the environment. In C. Calhoun & G. Draunguian (Eds.), The deepening crisis: Governance challenges after neoliberalism. (pp. 19-42). New York: New York University Press.
Higginbotham, E. B. (1990). In politics to stay: Black women leaders and party politics in the 1940s. In L. Tilly & P. Griffin (Eds.), Women, politics and change. (pp. 199-220). New York: Russell Sage Foundation Press.
Hofstadter, R. (1992). Social Darwinism in American thought. (E. Foner, Intr.). Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Harootunian, H. (2015). Marx After Marx: History and time in the expansion of capitalism. New York: Columbia University Press.
Hounsell, D. A. (1984). From the American system to mass production, 1800-1932. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Kaslem, K., & Williams, V. (2010) Social justice feminism. UCLA Women’s Law Journal, 18, 131-150.
Kenway, J. (2002). Remembering and regenerating Gramsci. In K. Wesser (Ed.), Feminist engagements: Revisiting and revisioning male theorists in education and cultural studies (pp. 155-170). New York & London: Routledge.
Kelly, R. E. (2014, February 10). What would Chinese hegemony look like. The Diplomat. Retrieved from http://thediplomat.com/2014/02/what-would-chinese-hegemony-look-like/
King, M. (2016). The end of alchemy: Money, banking, and the future of the global economy. New York: W. W. Norton.
Lachmann, R. (2013). What is historical sociology? New York: Polity Press.
Ledwith, M. (2009). Antonio Gramsci and feminism: The elusive nature of power. Educational Philosophy &Theory, 41(6), 684-697.
Lenin, V. I. (1960a). The economic consent of narodism and the criticism of it in Mr. Struve’s book. In Collected Works, Vol. I. London: Lawrence & Wishart.
Lenin, V. I. (1960b). The development of capitalism in Russia. In Collected Works, Vol. 3. London: Lawrence & Wishart.
Letherby, G. (2003). Feminist research in theory and practice. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press.
Marx, K. (1977). Capital: A critique of political economy. Vol I. (B. Fowkes, Trans.)
New York: Vintage Books.
Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1989) “Excerpts from The German Ideology.” In L. S. Feuer (Ed). Basic writings on politics and philosophy (pp. 246-261). New York: Anchor Books.
Materson, L. G. (2009). For the freedom of the race: Black women and electoral politics in Illinois. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
McElvaine, R. (1993). The Great Depression: America, 1929-1941. New York: Times Books.
McGerr, M. (2005). A fierce discontent: The rise and fall of the progressive movement in America. New York: Oxford University Press.
McGuire, J. T. (2001). A catalyst for reform: The Women’s Joint Legislative Conference (WJLC) and its fight for labor legislation in New York State, 1918-1933. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). State University of New York at Binghamton, Binghamton, NY.
McGuire, J. T. (2004). From the courts to the state legislatures: Social justice feminism, labor legislation and the 1920s. Labor History, 45(2), 225-246.
McGuire, J. T. 2006. Making the case for night work legislation in progressive era New York, 1911-1915. Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, 5(1), 47-70.
McGuire, J. T. (2011a). Continuing an alternative view of public administration: Mary van Kleeck and industrial citizenship, 1918-1927. Administration & Society, 43(1), 66-86.
McGuire, J. T. (2012a). Gender & the personal shaping of public administration: Mary Anderson and the Women’s Bureau, 1920-1930. Public Administration Review, 72(2), 265-271.
McGuire, J. T. (2012b). The boundaries of democratic reform: Social justice feminism and race in the South, 1931-1939. Journal of Southern History, 78 (4), 887-912.
McGuire, J. T. (2013). Working within the labyrinth of race: Crystal Bird Fauset, urban African-American women, and the National Democratic Party, 1934-1944. Journal of Urban History 39(2), 172-192.
McGuire, J. T. (2014). Beginning an “extraordinary opportunity:” Eleanor Roosevelt, Molly Dewson, and the expansion of women’s boundaries in the Democratic Party, 1924-1934. Women’s History Review 23(6), 922-937.
Muller v. Oregon, 208 U.S. 412 (1908). Retrieved from https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/208/412/case.html
Oxford English Dictionary. (2015). Hegemony. Retrieved 21 December 2015 from www/oed.com
People v. Schweinler Press, 214 N.Y. 395 (1915).
Perkins, F. (1929). Address at Testimonial Luncheon in [Frances Perkins’s] Honor …, typed copy in Frances Perkins Papers (Box 44, “Speeches, 1929–1930”). Rare Book and Manuscript Collection, Butler Library, Columbia University, New York.
Reed, J. P. (2013). Theorist of subaltern subjectivity: Antonio Gramsci, popular beliefs, political passion, and reciprocal learning. Critical Sociology 39(4), 561-591.
Schneiderman, R. (1926). Extracts from address delivered by Miss Rose Schneiderman before the Women’s Industrial Conference … Jan. 20, 1926: The right to citizenship. Mary van Kleeck Papers (Box 71, Folder 1171). Smith College, Northampton, MA.
Scranton, P. (1997). Endless novelty: Specialty production and American industrialization, 1865-1925. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Simon, R. (1982) Gramsci’s political thought: An introduction. London: Lawrence and Wishart.
Sklar, K. K. (1995). Florence Kelley and the nation’s work: The rise of women’s political culture, 1830-1900. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Sklar, K. K., Schuler, A., & Strasser, S. (1998). Introduction. In K. K. Sklar, A. Schuler & S. Strasser (Eds.), Social justice feminists in the United States and Germany: A dialogue in documents, 1885–1933 (pp. 4-5). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press).
Synamon, B., with Fazzari, S. M., & Setterfeld, M. (2013). After the Great Recession: The struggle for economic recovery and growth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Urofsky, M. (1992). Bunting v. Oregon. In The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States. New York, London: Oxford University Press.
Urry, J. (1981). The anatomy of capitalist societies. London: Macmillan.
Van der Pijl, K. (2003). Gramsci and Left Managerialism. Critical Review of International Political & Social Ideology, 8(4): 499-511.
Ware, S. (1987). Partner and I. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
White, D. G. (1999). Too heavy a load: Black women in defense of themselves, 1894-1994. New York: Norton.
Wiebe, R. (1967). The search for order, 1877-1920. New York: Scribners.
Williams, R. (1977). Marxism and literature. New York: Oxford University Press.
Woloch, N. (1998). Muller v. Oregon: A brief history with documents. New York: Bedford.
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