The political and social change of the Progressive Era brought conflicts over labor, women's rights, consumerism, religion, sexuality, and many other aspects of American life. As Americans argued and fought over suffrage and political reform, vast changes were also taking place in women's professional, material, personal, recreational, and intellectual lives. This book brings to life the everyday experiences, priorities, and challenges of women in America's Progressive Era (ca. 1890-1920). Includes the barnstorming bloomer girls
who showed America that women could play baseball; film star, tycoon, and co-founder of the Academy of Motion Pictures Mary Pickford; the highly skilled Hello Girls
- telephone operators who helped win World War I; the remarkable journalist and civil rights activist Ida Wells-Barnett; and other women who led both famous and ordinary lives that were shaped by and helped to drive the dramatic social change taking place during the Progressive Era.