Dreamers of a New Day: Women Who Invented the Twentieth Century

By Sheila Rowbotham

From the 1880s to the 1920s, a profound social awakening among women extended the possibilities of change far beyond the struggle for the vote. Amid the growth of globalized trade, mass production, immigration and urban slums, American and British women broke with custom and prejudice. Taking off corsets, forming free unions, living communally, buying ethically, joining trade unions, doing social work in settlements, these “dreamers of a new day” challenged ideas about sexuality, mothering, housework, the economy and citizenship.

Drawing on a wealth of research, Sheila Rowbotham has written a groundbreaking new history that shows how women created much of the fabric of modern life. These innovative dreamers raised questions that remain at the forefront of our twenty-first-century lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Jul 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781844678075

Sheila Rowbotham

Sheila Rowbotham, who helped start the women's liberation movement in Britain, is known internationally as an historian of feminism and radical social movements. She is the author of the ground-breaking books Women, Resistance and Revolution; Woman's Consciousness, Man's World; and Hidden from History. Her other works include Dreamers of a New Day: Women Who Invented the Twentieth Century; the biography Edward Carpenter: A Life of Liberty and Love, shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize and winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Biography, and Rebel Crossings: New Women, Free Lovers and Radicals in Britain and the United States. Verso have also reissued her memoir Promise of a Dream: Remembering the Sixties, as part of the Feminist Classic series. Her latest book is Daring to Hope: My Life in the 1970s. Her poetry and two plays have been published and she has written for newspapers and journals in Britain, the US, Italy, Brazil, Turkey, Sweden and Sri Lanka. She lives in Bristol.

Reviews for Dreamers of a New Day

[emillia_lorde · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Long before the widespread feminist movements of the 1960s and 70s, Sheila Rowbotham explores the women of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century who were transforming women's lives and social possibilities in the areas of work, motherhood, marriage, domestic labour, personal and sexual relationships, housing, food and fashion. Well documented with many primary sources, this is an important resource to make sure the contributions women made to shaping the modern world and opening up new possibilites are not forgotten.