Sister's Memories

Among the great figures of Progressive Era reform, Edith and Grace Abbott are perhaps the least sung. Peers, companions, and coworkers of legendary figures such as Jane Addams and Sophonisba Breckinridge, the Abbott sisters were nearly omnipresent in turn-of-the-century struggles to improve the lives of the poor and the working-class people who fed the industrial engines and crowded into diverse city neighborhoods. Grace's innovative role as a leading champion for the rights of children, immigrants, and women earned her a key place in the history of the social justice movement. As her friend and colleague Eleanor Roosevelt wrote, Grace was "one of the great women of our day... a definite strength which we could count on for use in battle". A Sister's Memories is the inspiring story of Grace Abbott (1878-1939), as told by her sister and social justice comrade, Edith Abbott (1876-1957). Edith recalls in vivid detail the Nebraska childhood, impressive achievements, and struggles of her sister who, as head of the Immigrants' Protective League and the U. S. Children's Bureau, championed children's rights from the slums of Chicago to the villages of Appalachia. Grace's crusade can perhaps be best summed up in her well-known credo: "Justice for all children is the high ideal in a democracy". Her efforts saved the lives of thousands of children and immigrants and improved those of millions more. These trailblazing social service works led the way to the creation of the Social Security Act and UNICEF and caused the press to nickname her "The Mother of America's 43 Million Children". She was the first woman in American history to be nominated to the presidential cabinet and the first person to represent the United States at a committee of the League of Nations. Edited by Abbott scholar John Sorensen, "A Sister's Memories" is destined to become a classic. It shapes the diverse writings of Edith Abbott into a cohesive narrative for the first time and fills in the gaps of our understanding of Progressive Era reforms. Readers of all backgrounds will find themselves engrossed by this history of the unstoppable, pioneer feminist Abbott sisters.


Contents:

Illustrations

Introduction

Part 1. A Prairie Childhood
1. Children of the Western Plains
2. Some Family Traditions: Abolition and the Civil War
3. Democracy on the High Plains
4. Our Prairie Home
5. The Rights of the Indian
6. The Rights of Women
7. Father's Law Office
8. A Home of Law and Politics
9. The Children's Day
10. Books in the Prairie Days
11. Grace and the Rights of Children
12. The Treeless Plains
13. The End of the Beginning

Part 2. The Hull House Years
Preface
14. Life at Hull House
15. Protecting Immigrant Arrivals
16. The Lost Immigrant Girls
17. The Children of Immigrants
18. Protecting Workers: Immigrants and Women
19. A Fair Deal: Banks and Courts
20. The "New Immigration"
21. Immigration at the Source
22. The Massachusetts Commission on Immigration
23. A Pacifist in the First World War
24. Julius Rosenwald
25. Votes for Women
26. The Children's Bureau
27. The First Child Labor Law
28. The Tragedy of "Hammer v. Dagenhart"
29. Children and the War
30. Back to Chicago

Part 3. The Crusade for Children
31. The New Chief
32. The First Year
33. The Maternity Bill: A Matter of Life and Death
34. The Supreme Court and the Radio
35. The Children's Amendment
36. Madame President
37. The Battle Continues
38. Publications and Politics
39. Geneva
40. Extending the Act
41. 1929
42. Grace Abbott for the Cabinet
43. The White House Conference
44. Conversion by Exigency
45. First Essentials
46. The Undying Fire

Acknowledgments
Appendix. The Undying Fire
Illustrations
Edith Abbott (1919)
Grace Abbott (1881)
Grace Abbott (1889/1900)
Grace Abbott with her niece Charlotte Abbott (1917/1918)
Edith Abbott and Grace Abbott (1930s)