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9780226670225

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Reviews

American historians have long struggled to understand the confluence of factors contributing to the erosion of nineteenth-century conceptions of Moral Motherhood: those assumptions about female selflessness, purity, and self-sacrifice that authorized white, middle-class women to participate in shaping twentieth-century civic culture. Explanations of the transition from maternalism to contemporary perceptions of mothering as a private experience--simply one choice among many that a woman may elect in the course of a lifetime--have, until now, been unsatisfying and partial. At last, Rebecca Jo Plant has identified social, political, cultural, and biomedical factors that ordained this change by the mid-twentieth century. Offering new and complex ways of thinking about this monumental transition, her book will inform work on modern American politics, culture, and society for years to come. --Regina Morantz-Sanchez, University of Michigan<br>--Regina Morantz-Sanchez, University of Michigan

"""Well written and thoroughly researched, the book provides an engaging examination of the cultural reconstruction of motherhood in the modern US."" (Choice)"""

Author Information

Rebecca Jo Plant is associate professor of history at the University of California, San Diego.

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