“Early nineteenth-century religious idealism and the market revolution of New England had given rise to the “cult of true womanhood,” where the true woman was an expert in feminine domestic crafts and pious behavior toward church and family, intelligent and well-suited to a companionate, rather than hierarchical, marriage relationship. Drawing on white women’s diaries and a range of intimate sources, Nancy Cott pointed out how the social practice of separate spheres created strong bonds and friendships between women, as well as a rich feminine culture in itself. By the turn of the twentieth century, the progressives’ notion of the New Woman that had emerged in Europe and English-speaking countries wished to break the separate spheres dichotomy and to be less restrained in spheres of citizenship and physical activities” (Fischer, 1992).
Works Cited:
Marlene LeGates, In Their Time: A History of Feminism in Western Society, Published by Routledge, 2001, ISBN 0415930987, 9780415930987, 406 pages
Eugenia C. DeLamotte, Natania Meeker, Jean F. O’Barr, Women Imagine Change: A Global Anthology of Women’s Resistance from 600 B.C.E. to Present, Published by Routledge, 2007, 518 pages.
Rosemary Agonito, History of Ideas on Woman: A Source Book (New York: Capricorn Books, 1977)
Janet K. Boles, Historical Dictionary of Feminism (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, c.2006)
Gayle V. Fischer, Journal of Woman’s History Guide to Periodical Literature, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992)