AMERICAN FEMINISTS.

By Robert E.Riegel. Lawrence: University of KansasPress, 1963. 223 pp. $4.50.

No one needs to be reminded that the life and status of women in the United States has been revolutionized in the past hundred years in 101 different ways. It can be argued, as Professor Riegel suggests, that such changes were bound to come as part of the changing times, but however inevitable the transformation, a group of strong-minded females proved important catalytic agents in the process; and in this volume we have the story of this dynamic and interesting group.

Included here are fairly substantial accounts of the life and work of some 25 important figures in this movement, with briefer reference to a considerable number of peripheral characters, both male and female. After describing such early leaders as Lucretia Mott, who is sometimes heralded as the founder of the modern feminist movement, the author devotes special chapters to such major figures as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucy Stone. These are in some ways the most interesting pages, though it takes such other chapters as those dealing with literature and the professions to remind us of Margaret Fuller, Elizabeth Oakes Smith, Dr. Harriet Hunt, and Dr. Mary Walker. And a chapter entitled "Mavericks" includes such entertaining women as Victoria Woodhull and her sister, Tennessee Celeste Claflin, who certainly reflected the advanced thought of John Humphrey Noyes (Dartmouth 1830) in the fields of birth control and eugenics.

Starting as abolitionists, as most in this period did, these women went on to feminism and often to such other reform movements as the fight against liquor and tobacco, against poverty and prostitution, and interest in such causes as vegetarianism, mesmerism, spiritualism, Fourierism, and dress reform for women. The risibilities of the modern male are certainly stirred to learn that crowds stoned feminists who adopted the modest innovation sponsored by Mrs. Amelia Bloomer, which consisted of very full ankle-length bloomers covered by a skirt which reached well below the knees. The bibliography indicates that Professor Riegel has used a very large body of source material, including the excellent growing collections concerning women at Smith and Radcliffe. The result is a thorough, readable, and revealing account which enables us to see these women reformers as human beings, with all their strength of character and at the same time with all the eccentricities and frustrations which help so much to explain some of their actions. Pen and ink sketches of some female apparel of those days, done by Mrs. Riegel, add greatly to the attractiveness of the volume.