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Abstract
One of the most influential, yet little known, women in the realm of Progressive reform was Grace Hoadley Dodge (1856-1914). Born in New York City to a wealthy family noted for its philanthropic interests, Dodge rejected the traditionally ornamental role of an upper class wife and mother in favor of a career devoted to social reform. Through her work with such organizations as the State Charities Aid Association, she became aware of the severe challenges to family stability imposed by the rigors of urban life. In her view, the family unit was essential to the moral and spiritual strength of American society and it was being seriously undermined by the fragmentation and corruption of urban life. Dodge found her own channel for effecting reform in projects designed to aid those individuals most responsible for maintaining family stability--women.
Dodge was aware of the practical hardships faced by many women living and working in the city, but she was equally concerned by the moral and spiritual deprivation they suffered. She sought to fill this lack by founding a system of Working Girls' Clubs designed to awaken a sense of female fellowship in a physically and morally wholesome environment. Dodge also tried to channel women into safer and more uplifting forms of work. As cofounder of the Kitchen Garden Association and its successor, the Industrial Education Association, Dodge emerged as a leader in the vocational education movement. Her growing prominence in this field led to her appointment as the first woman to sit on the New York City School Board. Dodge also played a pivotal role in founding Teachers College serving as that institution's treasurer and most effective fund raiser.
Dodge's concern for helping young women withstand the dangers and corruption of urban life led to her involvement with a variety of reform organizations such as the American Purity Alliance, the National Vigilance committee and the Woman's Municipal League. In her later years, she successfully united the two opposing branches of the Young Woman's Christian Association into one national organization and served as its President until her death in 1914.
Dodge's decision to venture beyond the prescribed boundaries of home and family was rooted in her service oriented upbringing and in her own intense faith in the notion of service as a religious duty. She found additional justification in the growing sense of alarm among many people over the consequences of rapid urbanization. The chaos and immorality that increasingly characterized urban life was perceived as a menance not only to the city's underclass, but to society as a whole. Women, Dodge believed, could exert a beneficial and uplifting influence on society by virtue of their superior "feminine" sensibilities and moral values. She was able to resolve the conflict between women's traditionally domestic responsibilities and her own choice of a public career by expanding her definition of "true womanhood" to include service to the community, as well as to the home. Thus, in viewing women as instruments of social change and improvement, Dodge found an acceptable rationale for propelling women into the center of the Progressive reform effort.
Her adherence to the concept of uniquely female qualities and responsibilities certainly limited her ability to self-consciously and critically examine the whole notion of gender-defined spheres of activity. But it enabled her to formulate an approach to reform based on awakening a sense of female community. This gender-based community identity not only helped to sustain women's participation in Progressive social reform and political activism, but made possible the feminist achievements of the early 20th century.
