A01=Ruby Oram
Author_Ruby Oram
Category=JBSD
Category=JBSF1
Category=JNB
Category=NH
Category=NHK
Category=NHTB
Chicago history
child labor
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
gender
girlhood
home economics
Progressive Era
school reform
vocational education
Product details
- ISBN 9780226844336
- Weight: 426g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 12 Nov 2025
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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How reforms to girlhood education in the Progressive Era cemented inequalities of gender, race, and class in urban school systems.
In Home Work, historian Ruby Oram tells the story of how middle-class, white women reformers lobbied the state to implement various public education reforms to shape the lives of girls and women in industrial cities between 1870 and 1930. Women such as Jane Addams and Florence Kelley used education reform to target working-class communities and advocate for their middle-class ideals of girlhood and femininity, which could vary depending on the racial or socio-economic backgrounds of the girls. For example, reformers generally encouraged white girls to care for their future families, while pushing Black girls toward becoming domestic workers in others’ homes. Using Chicago as a case study, Oram also explores how many of the reforms sought by white women were in response to evolving anxieties about immigration, health, and sexual delinquency.
An illuminating addition to the history of urban education in America, Home Work enriches our understanding of educational inequality in twentieth-century schools.
In Home Work, historian Ruby Oram tells the story of how middle-class, white women reformers lobbied the state to implement various public education reforms to shape the lives of girls and women in industrial cities between 1870 and 1930. Women such as Jane Addams and Florence Kelley used education reform to target working-class communities and advocate for their middle-class ideals of girlhood and femininity, which could vary depending on the racial or socio-economic backgrounds of the girls. For example, reformers generally encouraged white girls to care for their future families, while pushing Black girls toward becoming domestic workers in others’ homes. Using Chicago as a case study, Oram also explores how many of the reforms sought by white women were in response to evolving anxieties about immigration, health, and sexual delinquency.
An illuminating addition to the history of urban education in America, Home Work enriches our understanding of educational inequality in twentieth-century schools.
Ruby Oram is assistant professor of practice in the Department of History at Texas State University.
