{"id":890,"date":"2008-09-22T08:19:40","date_gmt":"2008-09-22T08:19:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/?p=890"},"modified":"2014-01-06T12:51:20","modified_gmt":"2014-01-06T12:51:20","slug":"book-review-akrons-better-half","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/2008\/09\/22\/book-review-akrons-better-half\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Akron&#8217;s Better Half"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Akron\u2019s Better Half: Women\u2019s Clubs and the Humanization of the City, 1825-1925. <\/em>By Kathleen L. Endres.\u00a0Akron: University of Akron Press, 2006. 232 pp. (cloth) 978-1-931968-36-2, $54.95, (paper) 978-1-931968-41-6, $27.95<\/p>\n<p>Most of Akron\u2019s claim to national and international historical significance centers on its former status as the rubber capital of the world characterized by Steve Love\u2019s and David Giffel\u2019s,\u00a0<em>Wheels of Fortune: The Story of Rubber in Akron<\/em>\u00a0and historian and communications professor at the University of Akron, Kathleen Endres, 2000 publication\u00a0<em>Rosie the Rubber Worker<\/em>. However, Endres, in\u00a0<em>Akron\u2019s Better Half: Women\u2019s Clubs and the Humanization of the City, 1825-1925<\/em>\u00a0contends that understanding the history of women\u2019s organizations in Akron, Ohio contributes greatly to the local and national narrative of urbanization and underscores the important work of Akron women beyond the factory floors of Goodyear and Firestone.<!--more-->\u00a0 Endres examines the history of \u201cclub women\u201d in Akron from the antebellum period through the First World War.\u00a0 She argues that women\u2019s clubs were vital to urban growth.\u00a0 They were responsible for the social services required to make this regional transportation and industrial hub livable for elites, professionals, and laborers alike.\u00a0 Making a case for the significance of micro-history and rather traditional women\u2019s history, Endres offers insight into the conflicts and collaboration within and between women\u2019s clubs, and she underscores the participation of non-white, non-Protestant, and working class women in club organizing in Akron.<\/p>\n<p>According to Endres, Akron\u2019s women\u2019s clubs emerged alongside the growth of Protestant churches and reform movements in the city.\u00a0 Many of the first clubs were auxiliaries to men\u2019s organizations, specifically focused on social causes such as the temperance movement.\u00a0 She also contends that club work for both men and women was particularly an American tradition evidencing famous European\u2019s, such as de Tocqueville\u2019s observations concerning early American culture and society and the importance of social organization to the formation of American identity.\u00a0 Making a case for the positive effects of Americans\u2019 tendencies to form social clubs, throughout the work the Endres explains the significant impact women\u2019s clubs, in particular, had on transforming the city from an \u201calmost unbroken wilderness\u201d newly littered with crime and disease characteristic of the difficult lives of canal workers and exploitive entrepreneurs to a \u201cvital Midwestern city,\u201d (12).<\/p>\n<p>As previously mentioned, Endres writes a rather traditional \u201cherstory\u201d women\u2019s history by focusing the bulk of her book on elite and middle class, \u201cnotable\u201d women, whom she rightly argues were largely left out of previous histories of Akron. Moreover, women\u2019s history students will be familiar with the importance of the culture of \u201crepublican motherhood,\u201d \u201cthe cult of true womanhood,\u201d and the Progressives\u2019 mission of \u201cmunicipal housekeeping\u201d that which the author attributes the appeal of club work to Akron women. However, the author also offers a historical analysis that explains Akron\u2019s path to urbanization and the methods in which the people of the city provided social services and fostered a \u201cmoral,\u201d \u201cprogressive\u201d civic identity through a gendered analysis. Yet this forward thinking effort will not exempt Endres from a feminist critique of the ways in which she neglects to problematize the distinctions between the private and public sphere, as well as the authors assertion that Akron women did not consider being confined to the domestic domain as a hardship, but rather they considered it an honor (8). However, her inclusion and analysis of the non-white, non-protestant, and working class women\u2019s role in club organization deserves recognition, and remains a significant contribution to understanding Akron municipal history and American urban social and cultural history in general.\u00a0 Moreover,\u00a0<em>Akron<\/em><em>\u2019s \u201cBetter Half\u201d<\/em>\u00a0will certainly become an indispensable text for Ohio History courses.<\/p>\n<h4><em>Sevin Gallo<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Ph.D. candidate, University of Akron<\/em><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Akron\u2019s Better Half: Women\u2019s Clubs and the Humanization of the City, 1825-1925. By Kathleen L. Endres.\u00a0Akron: University of Akron Press, 2006. 232 pp. (cloth) 978-1-931968-36-2, $54.95, (paper) 978-1-931968-41-6, $27.95 Most of Akron\u2019s claim to national and international historical significance centers on its former status as the rubber capital of the world characterized by Steve Love\u2019s &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/2008\/09\/22\/book-review-akrons-better-half\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Book Review: Akron&#8217;s Better Half<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1622,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39906],"tags":[42006,7160,41966,18770,41962],"class_list":["post-890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-volume-5-issue-1-spring-2008","tag-5-1","tag-akron","tag-kathleen-endres","tag-review","tag-sevin-gallo"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1622"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=890"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":894,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890\/revisions\/894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}