Redeemer, Reformer, Rebel
Product details
- ISBN 9780813954882
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 09 Jul 2026
- Publisher: University of Virginia Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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The first biography of one of Virginia's greatest social reformers
When Dr. Kate Waller Barrett died in 1925, the governor of Virginia ordered flags to be flown at half-staff, the first time in its four-century history that the commonwealth paid such a tribute to a woman. This is the first biography of Barrett, the ardent and remarkably successful Progressive Era social reformer. Barrett's life spanned a time of seismic change in the nation and in women's lives, particularly Southern women, as they forged new identities in the changing environment of the post–Civil War years and the Progressive era.
Barrett rebelled against the restrictions imposed on Southern women and established her reputation as a strong-willed advocate for what many people at the time considered to be society's "outcasts": unwed mothers and prostitutes. She successfully combined evangelism with a maternalist strategy that brought a uniquely feminine approach to bear on social issues affecting women and children, and her years of activism propelled her onto the national stage and earned her global recognition. President Theodore Roosevelt called her "one of the most useful women in the United States." The outcast and lonely women of Richmond's slums of Butchertown called her simply "Mother Barrett."
Kathleen Waters Sander is Adjunct Professor of History at the University of Maryland's Global Campus and the author of Mary Elizabeth Garrett: Society and Philanthropy in the Gilded Age.
