Twentieth Century
Word with a Past: Muckrakers
While I was writing about Rebecca Harding Davis (1831-1910), I started off thinking of her as a proto-muckraker, working a generation before people like Ray Stannard Baker (1870-1946),* Lincoln Steffens (1866-1936), Ida Tarbell (1857-1944) and Ida B. Wells (1862-1931). But the closer I looked, the more I realized that the realism for which she was…
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Corsets for Victory?
And speaking of lady’s undergarments, as I believe we were, I can’t resist sharing this tidbit: When America entered World War I in 1917, chairman of the War Industries board Bernard Baruch asked women to stop buying corsets to conserve steel, part of the wider program of rationing, conserving and allocating materials important to…
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Ida Rosenthal: Dressmaker Turned Underwear Tycoon
As I mentioned recently, I’ve been thinking about women entrepreneurs and their stories in an on-again off-again way for the last few months. As I stumble across them, I’ll share them with you. Because that’s what I do. Next up, Ida Rosenthal (1886-1973), whom I mentioned in passing several posts ago. I first stumbled across…
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