Dorothy Sue Cobble

This project offers the first transnational history of US feminism and its quest for economic equality and social democracy over the last century. It shows how global feminism shaped US women’s reform and changed US social policy. It recasts assessments of the character, timing, and influence of US women’s movements and reveals a long, robust tradition of activism among working-class and immigrant US feminists for labor and human rights at home and abroad. Drawing on US and non-US archives, it provides new perspectives on internationalism and cross-cultural encounter by shifting attention to labor NGOs and the transnationalism of non-elite women. It creates new understandings of how peoples within and across national borders fostered economic and social justice.