Relations of Rescue: The Search for Female Moral Authority in the American West, 1874-1939

In this study of late nineteenth-century moral reform, Peggy Pascoe examines four specific cases-a home for Chinese prostitutes in San Francisco, California; a home for polygamous Mormon women in Salt Lake City, Utah; a home for unmarried mothers in Denver, Colorado; and a program for American Indians on the Omaha Reservation in Nebraska-to tell the story of the women who established missionary rescue homes for women in the American West. Focusing on two sets of relationships-those between women reformers and their male opponents, and those between women reformers and the various groups of women they sought to shelter-Pascoe traces the gender relations that framed the reformers’ search for female moral authority, analyzes the interaction between women reformers and the women who entered the rescue homes, and raises provocative questions about historians’ understanding of the dynamics of social feminism, social control, and intercultural relations.Relations of Rescue: The Search for Female Moral Authority in the American West, 1874-1939 is written by Peggy Pascoe and published by Oxford University Press. ISBNs for Relations of Rescue are 9780199729258, 0199729255 and the print ISBNs are 9780195084306, 0195084306. Additional ISBNs include 9780195060089.