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WORK TITLE: Divided We Stand
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S): Wheeler, Marjorie Spruill
BIRTHDATE: 7/26/1951
WEBSITE:
CITY:
STATE: SC
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
http://artsandsciences.sc.edu/hist/marjorie-j-spruill * http://artsandsciences.sc.edu/hist/sites/sc.edu.hist/files/vitae/SPRUILL%20Marjorie%20Full%20CV%20March%202017.pdf
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2003041195
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n2003041195
HEADING: Spruill, Marjorie Julian, 1951-
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035 __ |a (OCoLC)oca06055637
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100 1_ |a Spruill, Marjorie Julian, |d 1951-
400 1_ |a Wheeler, Marjorie Spruill, |d 1951-
670 __ |a Mississippi women, c2003: |b CIP t.p. (Marjorie Julian Spruill) data view (b. July 26, 1951)
670 __ |a Her New women of the new South, 1993: |b CIP t.p. (Marjorie Spruill Wheeler)
670 __ |a Votes for women!, c1995: |b CIP t.p. (Marjorie Spruill Wheeler) data sheet (b. 7-26-51)
670 __ |a Personal communication with author, March 18, 2004 |b (dropped last name Wheeler; prefers Marjorie Julian Spruill)
953 __ |a lk07 |b yz00
PERSONAL
Born July 26, 1951.
EDUCATION:University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, B.A.; Duke University, M.A.T.; University of Virginia, M.A., Ph.D.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Residential College, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, assistant director, 1974-77, assistant to Dean of Honors College and director, University Forum, 1985-90; University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, professor, 1990-2002; Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, associate provost and research professor of history, 2002-04; Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, Hardy fellow, 2006-07; University of South Carolina, Columbia, 2004–.
MEMBER:American Historical Association, Organization of American Historians, British Association for American Studies.
AWARDS:Grants from Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study; Schlesinger Library, Harvard University; National Endowment for the Humanities; American Association of University Women; Gerald R. Ford Foundation; and Wilson Center.
WRITINGS
Author of foreword, Melba Porter Hay, Madeline McDowell Breckinridge and the Battle for a New South, University Press of Kentucky (Lexington, KY), 2009.
SIDELIGHTS
Marjorie J. Spruill, who used the name Marjorie Spruill Wheeler earlier in her career, is recognized as an expert on the history of the American women’s rights movement, particularly in the contexts of gender and politics. A graduate of the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, she earned an M.A.T. at Duke University and completed an M.A. and her Ph.D. at the University of Virginia. Spruill joined the History Department of the University of South Carolina, where she became Distinguished Emerita Faculty, in 2004. She had previously taught at the University of Southern Mississippi and had ben associate provost and research professor at Vanderbilt University.
Spruill has written prolifically on women’s suffrage and women’s rights. She is an editorial board member of the Journal of American Studies, and has held previous positions on the editorial boards of Journal of Southern History and Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. She has also served as advisor to museums, documentary programs, and feature films. She is editor of the anthology One Woman, One Vote: Rediscovering the Woman Suffrage Movement, a companion volume to the PBS documentary film “One Woman, One Vote,” and coedited the textbook The South in the History of the Nation: A Reader.
New Women of the New South
New Women of the New South: The Leaders of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the Southern States is Spruill’s first book; in it, the author examines the subject of women’s suffrage through the lives of eleven women leaders. All came from prominent white families with powerful connections, and had been raised to believe they had a responsibility to raise up the culture of the South. As the author shows, they found it particularly important to present suffrage as authentic to Southern identity, and not a movement imposed by the hostile North.
The author argues that early suffragists in the South acted on the conviction that female equality should be recognized, and that women, children, and the poor needed protection from the materialism and greed of male governance. Suffragism was genteel and maternalistic. But dynamics shifted in the 1890s. After the black vote became an issue for Southerners in the post-Reconstruction era, suffragists realized that they could use this unease to their advantage. They pressed aggressively for women’s right to vote, framing this as a way to neutralize the black vote. In effect, they used the fear of black suffrage to try to propel the South into recognizing women’s right to vote and vigorously promoting this vote nationwide.
Divided We Stand
In Divided We Stand: The Battle Over Women’s Rights and Family Values That Polarized American Politics Spruill examines the dynamics of the movement from the 1970s through the dawning of the Trump era. As she shows, the women’s rights movement gained urgency in the 1970s as activists pushed for equal pay, abortion rights, and civil rights for lesbians. As these issues became a bigger part of national consciousness, they also deepened the division between liberal and conservative conceptions of women’s roles in family structures and in the larger society. Spruill argues that the women’s movement reached its most positive achievements in 1977 at the Houston National Women’s Conference. After this, the movement became increasingly fragmented and ineffective.
Spruill discusses the influence of feminist leaders such as Gloria Steinem and Bella Abzug, as well as that of conservatives such as Phyllis Schlafly and Lottie Beth Hobbs. She analyzes their various achievements and examines the ways in which the movement for equal rights, which focused at first on equal pay, was transformed into a more contested argument about gender, sexual orientation, social roles, and abortion. As the author shows, these arguments descended to the level of farce as Democrats and Republicans fought to appease angry voters on both sides: Schlafly went so far as to lead opposition to laws, branded as “feminist,” that were aimed at protecting battered women. As Republicans enthusiastically branded themselves “pro-family,” feminists responded by accusing Republicans of waging a war against women. In this increasingly polarized climate, politicians distanced themselves from feminist issues; as a result, previous commitments to basic issues such as equal pay and health care all but disappeared from party platforms.
“There are countless kernels of amazing achievement and courage throughout this jam-packed, engaging history,” observed a writer for Kirkus Reviews about Divided We Stand. Booklist contributor Colleen Mondor also admired the book, describing it as a “solid work and a must-read” on the topic of contemporary American women’s lives. Finding its narrative sometimes repetitive and lacking in analysis, a reviewer for Publishers Weekly said that Spruill’s “rigorous research and intense accuracy will make this an indispensable handbook” on the legacy of National Women’s Conference. Writing in the New York Times Book Review, Gillian Thomas found Divided We Stand a “detailed if somewhat dense” primer on how the women’s rights movement fractured women’s sense of unity and led to increased divisiveness in American politics and society.
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, January 1, 2017, Colleen Mondor, review of Divided We Stand: The Battle over Women’s Rights and Family Values That Polarized American Politics, p. 20.
Kirkus Reviews, December 1, 2016, review of Divided We Stand.
Library Journal, January 1, 2017, Jessica Bushore, review of Divided We Stand, p. 113.
New York Times Book Review, March 12, 2017, Gillian Thomas, review of Divided We Stand.
Publishers Weekly, December 19, 2016, review of Divided We Stand, p. 114.
ONLINE
Literary Hub, http://lithub.com/ (November 17, 2017), reviews of Divided We Stand.
University of South Carolina College of Arts and Sciences WebSite, http://artsandsciences.sc.edu/ (November 17, 2017), Spruill faculty profile.
Washington Independent Review of Books, http://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/ (November 17, 2017), Susan Green, review of Divided We Stand.
Wilson Center WebSite, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/ (November 17, 2017), Spruill profile.
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Marjorie J. Spruill
Professor of History
Email: marjorie.spruill@sc.edu
Office: 219 Gambrell Hall
Degrees: B.A. UNC-Chapel Hill
M.A.T. Duke University
M.A. University of Virginia
Ph.D. University of Virginia
Phone: (803) 777-2927
Research Interests: U.S. History, Women and Gender, American South
Curriculum vitae: Download PDF
Background
Specializes in United States history, particularly women's and gender history and the history of the American South. Professor Spruill teaches courses in U. S. women's history, southern history, recent American history, and historical methodology. She is the author of New Women of the New South: The Leaders of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the Southern States (Oxford University Press) and the editor of One Woman, One Vote: Rediscovering the Woman Suffrage Movement (NewSage Press);VOTES FOR WOMEN! The Woman Suffrage Movement in Tennessee, the South, and the Nation (University of Tennessee Press). She is co-editor of The South in the History of the Nation: A Reader (Bedford/St. Martin's); the three-volume anthology South Carolina Women: Their Lives and Times, (University of Georgia Press), and a two-volume Mississippi Women: Their Histories, Their Lives. Spruill has served as a member of the Executive Committee of the Southern Historical Association, and president of the Southern Association for Women Historians. She has served on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Southern History and is currently on the Editorial Board of the Journal of American Studies, the journal of the British Association for American Studies (BAAS). She was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University in 2006-2007. In 2010-2011 she was a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. In 2011-2012 she had a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and was a Resident Associate at the National Humanities Center. Her work has also been supported by the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation.
Current Activities
Spruill has a new book entitled DIVIDED WE STAND: The Battle Over Women’s Rights and Family Values That Polarized American Politics. (Bloomsbury 2017). It is about the transformation of American political culture and the origins of the highly partisan, deeply polarized politics of today. Spruill focuses on the 1970s, particularly the federally-sponsored International Women’s Year conferences of 1977 when feminists drafted a National Plan of Action and conservative women, organizing in opposition, created a “Pro-Family Movement” to counter feminist influence in politics. An epilogue continues the story from 1980 through the 2016 presidential election. Spruill argues that the great debates of the 1970s over women's rights and social roles were transformative. While in the early 1970s both major political parties supported the goals of the women’s rights movement, after 1980 – when the GOP chose to cast itself as the defender of family values -- American politics would never be the same. Spruill argues that the issues that divided American women into warring camps in the 1970s and divided the major parties have continued to shape the political discourse that dominates national politics, devaluing moderation and compromise and producing political gridlock.
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Marjorie Spruill
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AFFILIATION
Professor, History Department, University of South Carolina
WILSON CENTER PROJECTS
"Women's Rights, Family Values, and the Polarization of American Political Culture"
TERM
Sep 01, 2010 — May 01, 2011
Bio
Marjorie J. Spruill, Professor of History at the University of South Carolina, is an authority on the American women's rights movement. She has a particular interest in the intersection of ideas about gender and politics. Before turning to the study of the modern women's rights movement and the conservative countermovement, she focused on the woman suffrage movement, both nationally and in the American South. Her first book, New Women of the New South: The Leaders of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the Southern States, examined the historical and cultural obstacles to that movement in the American South and placed the southern movement in the context of the national. She was editor of One Woman, One Vote: Rediscovering the Woman Suffrage Movement, an anthology published to accompany the PBS film "One Woman, One Vote," and has published several other edited works on woman suffrage. She has also published a two-volume textbook on southern history co-edited with William A. Link, The South in the History of the Nation: A Reader (Bedford/St. Martin's). Believing fervently in the importance of historians disseminating scholarly findings to the public and the schools, Spruill has undertaken, in addition to her own research, projects in two states that encourage the writing and publication and reading of the history of women in those states. She is the co-editor of a two-volume anthology on women in Mississippi and a three-volume anthology on South Carolina women. She has served as an advisor for many museum exhibits, documentaries, and a feature film. Spruill is a former President of the Southern Association for Women's Historians. She has also served on the executive councils of the Southern Historical Association and the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive ERA. She is active in the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians (recently named to a second three-year term in its Distinguished Lecturers Program), and the British Association for American Studies (BAAS). She is a former Editorial Board member of the Journal of Southern History and the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography and is currently serving on the Editorial Board of the Journal of American Studies that is published by the British Association for American Studies (Cambridge University Press).Spruill has been recognized for outstanding teaching. Her research has been supported by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University; the National Endowment for the Humanities; the American Association of University Women; and the Gerald R. Ford Foundation, as well as the Wilson Center.
Education
B.A. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; M.A.T. Duke University; M.A. University of Virginia; Ph.D. University of Virginia
Experience
History Professor, University of South Carolina, 2004 to the present
Hardy Fellow, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, 2006-2007
Associate Provost and Research Professor of History, Vanderbilt University, 2002-2004
History Professor, University of Southern Mississippi, 1990-2002
Assistant to the Dean of the Honors College and Director of the University Forum, 1985-1990
Assistant Director, Residential College, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, 1974-1977
Expertise
U.S. History, particularly women's and gender history, and the American South
Project Summary
The Project: A book about the transformation of American political culture in the 1970s and the origins of the highly partisan, deeply polarized political climate we now inhabit. The central argument is that the great debates of the decade over women's rights and social roles played a crucial and largely unrecognized role in these developments. The struggle between women's right advocates and social conservatives pushed gender issues to front and center in American politics even as it led more women to become politically active. As the personal became political and the political became personal and issues were increasingly fraught with religious or moral significance, the public and the politicians found consensus and compromise more difficult to achieve. The issues that divided the women of the United States into warring camps in the 1970s divided the major parties and shaped the political discourse that has since dominated American politics.
Major Publications
"Gender and America's Right Turn," in Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in the 1970s, co-editors Bruce Schulman and Julian E. Zelizer, Harvard University Press, 2008.
One Woman, One Vote: Rediscovering the Woman Suffrage Movement, ed. NewSage Press, 1995. Companion volume to the PBS documentary, "One Woman, One Vote."
New Women of the New South: The Leaders of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the Southern States. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.
RELATED CONTENT
GENDER EQUALITY
Progress is Not Linear: A Book Event with Dr. Marjorie J. Spruill
Divided We Stand: The Battle Over Women's Rights and Family Values That Polarized American Politics
By: Marjorie Spruill
Women's Rights, Family Values, and the Polarization of American Politics
Welcome to Wilson Center
WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR SCHOLARS
Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center
One Woodrow Wilson Plaza
1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20004-3027
202-691-4000
The Wilson Center, chartered by Congress as the living memorial to President Woodrow Wilson, is the nation’s key non-partisan policy forum. In tackling global issues through independent research and open dialogue, the Center informs actionable ideas for Congress, the administration, and the broader policy community.
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You are here
Wilson Center Home Marjorie Spruill
FORMER FELLOW UNITED STATES STUDIES
Marjorie Spruill
EXPERTISE
North America United States
AFFILIATION
Professor, History Department, University of South Carolina
WILSON CENTER PROJECTS
"Women's Rights, Family Values, and the Polarization of American Political Culture"
TERM
Sep 01, 2010 — May 01, 2011
Bio
Marjorie J. Spruill, Professor of History at the University of South Carolina, is an authority on the American women's rights movement. She has a particular interest in the intersection of ideas about gender and politics. Before turning to the study of the modern women's rights movement and the conservative countermovement, she focused on the woman suffrage movement, both nationally and in the American South. Her first book, New Women of the New South: The Leaders of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the Southern States, examined the historical and cultural obstacles to that movement in the American South and placed the southern movement in the context of the national. She was editor of One Woman, One Vote: Rediscovering the Woman Suffrage Movement, an anthology published to accompany the PBS film "One Woman, One Vote," and has published several other edited works on woman suffrage. She has also published a two-volume textbook on southern history co-edited with William A. Link, The South in the History of the Nation: A Reader (Bedford/St. Martin's). Believing fervently in the importance of historians disseminating scholarly findings to the public and the schools, Spruill has undertaken, in addition to her own research, projects in two states that encourage the writing and publication and reading of the history of women in those states. She is the co-editor of a two-volume anthology on women in Mississippi and a three-volume anthology on South Carolina women. She has served as an advisor for many museum exhibits, documentaries, and a feature film. Spruill is a former President of the Southern Association for Women's Historians. She has also served on the executive councils of the Southern Historical Association and the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive ERA. She is active in the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians (recently named to a second three-year term in its Distinguished Lecturers Program), and the British Association for American Studies (BAAS). She is a former Editorial Board member of the Journal of Southern History and the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography and is currently serving on the Editorial Board of the Journal of American Studies that is published by the British Association for American Studies (Cambridge University Press).Spruill has been recognized for outstanding teaching. Her research has been supported by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University; the National Endowment for the Humanities; the American Association of University Women; and the Gerald R. Ford Foundation, as well as the Wilson Center.
Education
B.A. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; M.A.T. Duke University; M.A. University of Virginia; Ph.D. University of Virginia
Experience
History Professor, University of South Carolina, 2004 to the present
Hardy Fellow, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, 2006-2007
Associate Provost and Research Professor of History, Vanderbilt University, 2002-2004
History Professor, University of Southern Mississippi, 1990-2002
Assistant to the Dean of the Honors College and Director of the University Forum, 1985-1990
Assistant Director, Residential College, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, 1974-1977
Expertise
U.S. History, particularly women's and gender history, and the American South
Project Summary
The Project: A book about the transformation of American political culture in the 1970s and the origins of the highly partisan, deeply polarized political climate we now inhabit. The central argument is that the great debates of the decade over women's rights and social roles played a crucial and largely unrecognized role in these developments. The struggle between women's right advocates and social conservatives pushed gender issues to front and center in American politics even as it led more women to become politically active. As the personal became political and the political became personal and issues were increasingly fraught with religious or moral significance, the public and the politicians found consensus and compromise more difficult to achieve. The issues that divided the women of the United States into warring camps in the 1970s divided the major parties and shaped the political discourse that has since dominated American politics.
Major Publications
"Gender and America's Right Turn," in Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in the 1970s, co-editors Bruce Schulman and Julian E. Zelizer, Harvard University Press, 2008.
One Woman, One Vote: Rediscovering the Woman Suffrage Movement, ed. NewSage Press, 1995. Companion volume to the PBS documentary, "One Woman, One Vote."
New Women of the New South: The Leaders of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the Southern States. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.
RELATED CONTENT
GENDER EQUALITY
Progress is Not Linear: A Book Event with Dr. Marjorie J. Spruill
Divided We Stand: The Battle Over Women's Rights and Family Values That Polarized American Politics
By: Marjorie Spruill
Women's Rights, Family Values, and the Polarization of American Politics
Welcome to Wilson Center
WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR SCHOLARS
Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center
One Woodrow Wilson Plaza
1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20004-3027
202-691-4000
The Wilson Center, chartered by Congress as the living memorial to President Woodrow Wilson, is the nation’s key non-partisan policy forum. In tackling global issues through independent research and open dialogue, the Center informs actionable ideas for Congress, the administration, and the broader policy community.
DONATE NOW
EMAIL UPDATES
Weekly updates from the Wilson Center
enter email
Subscribe
FOLLOW WILSON CENTER
Facebook Twitter RSS Youtube Linked In
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SUPPORT the Wilson Center with every Amazon purchase.
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ShareThis Copy and PasteSkip to main content RESEARCH EVENTS EXPLORE EXPERTS ABOUT DONATE You are here Wilson Center Home Marjorie Spruill FORMER FELLOW UNITED STATES STUDIES Marjorie Spruill EXPERTISE North America United States AFFILIATION Professor, History Department, University of South Carolina WILSON CENTER PROJECTS "Women's Rights, Family Values, and the Polarization of American Political Culture" TERM Sep 01, 2010 — May 01, 2011 Bio Marjorie J. Spruill, Professor of History at the University of South Carolina, is an authority on the American women's rights movement. She has a particular interest in the intersection of ideas about gender and politics. Before turning to the study of the modern women's rights movement and the conservative countermovement, she focused on the woman suffrage movement, both nationally and in the American South. Her first book, New Women of the New South: The Leaders of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the Southern States, examined the historical and cultural obstacles to that movement in the American South and placed the southern movement in the context of the national. She was editor of One Woman, One Vote: Rediscovering the Woman Suffrage Movement, an anthology published to accompany the PBS film "One Woman, One Vote," and has published several other edited works on woman suffrage. She has also published a two-volume textbook on southern history co-edited with William A. Link, The South in the History of the Nation: A Reader (Bedford/St. Martin's). Believing fervently in the importance of historians disseminating scholarly findings to the public and the schools, Spruill has undertaken, in addition to her own research, projects in two states that encourage the writing and publication and reading of the history of women in those states. She is the co-editor of a two-volume anthology on women in Mississippi and a three-volume anthology on South Carolina women. She has served as an advisor for many museum exhibits, documentaries, and a feature film. Spruill is a former President of the Southern Association for Women's Historians. She has also served on the executive councils of the Southern Historical Association and the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive ERA. She is active in the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians (recently named to a second three-year term in its Distinguished Lecturers Program), and the British Association for American Studies (BAAS). She is a former Editorial Board member of the Journal of Southern History and the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography and is currently serving on the Editorial Board of the Journal of American Studies that is published by the British Association for American Studies (Cambridge University Press).Spruill has been recognized for outstanding teaching. Her research has been supported by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University; the National Endowment for the Humanities; the American Association of University Women; and the Gerald R. Ford Foundation, as well as the Wilson Center. Education B.A. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; M.A.T. Duke University; M.A. University of Virginia; Ph.D. University of Virginia Experience History Professor, University of South Carolina, 2004 to the present Hardy Fellow, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, 2006-2007 Associate Provost and Research Professor of History, Vanderbilt University, 2002-2004 History Professor, University of Southern Mississippi, 1990-2002 Assistant to the Dean of the Honors College and Director of the University Forum, 1985-1990 Assistant Director, Residential College, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, 1974-1977 Expertise U.S. History, particularly women's and gender history, and the American South Project Summary The Project: A book about the transformation of American political culture in the 1970s and the origins of the highly partisan, deeply polarized political climate we now inhabit. The central argument is that the great debates of the decade over women's rights and social roles played a crucial and largely unrecognized role in these developments. The struggle between women's right advocates and social conservatives pushed gender issues to front and center in American politics even as it led more women to become politically active. As the personal became political and the political became personal and issues were increasingly fraught with religious or moral significance, the public and the politicians found consensus and compromise more difficult to achieve. The issues that divided the women of the United States into warring camps in the 1970s divided the major parties and shaped the political discourse that has since dominated American politics. Major Publications "Gender and America's Right Turn," in Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in the 1970s, co-editors Bruce Schulman and Julian E. Zelizer, Harvard University Press, 2008. One Woman, One Vote: Rediscovering the Woman Suffrage Movement, ed. NewSage Press, 1995. Companion volume to the PBS documentary, "One Woman, One Vote." New Women of the New South: The Leaders of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the Southern States. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. RELATED CONTENT GENDER EQUALITY Progress is Not Linear: A Book Event with Dr. Marjorie J. Spruill Divided We Stand: The Battle Over Women's Rights and Family Values That Polarized American Politics By: Marjorie Spruill Women's Rights, Family Values, and the Polarization of American Politics WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR SCHOLARS Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center One Woodrow Wilson Plaza 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW Washington, DC 20004-3027 202-691-4000 The Wilson Center, chartered by Congress as the living memorial to President Woodrow Wilson, is the nation’s key non-partisan policy forum. In tackling global issues through independent research and open dialogue, the Center informs actionable ideas for Congress, the administration, and the broader policy community. DONATE NOW EMAIL UPDATES Weekly updates from the Wilson Center FOLLOW WILSON CENTER Facebook Twitter RSS Youtube Linked In Press About Support the Center 990 Forms/Budget Privacy SUPPORT the Wilson Center with every Amazon purchase. Close Skip to main content RESEARCH EVENTS EXPLORE EXPERTS ABOUT DONATE You are here Wilson Center Home Marjorie Spruill FORMER FELLOW UNITED STATES STUDIES Marjorie Spruill EXPERTISE North America United States AFFILIATION Professor, History Department, University of South Carolina WILSON CENTER PROJECTS "Women's Rights, Family Values, and the Polarization of American Political Culture" TERM Sep 01, 2010 — May 01, 2011 Bio Marjorie J. Spruill, Professor of History at the University of South Carolina, is an authority on the American women's rights movement. She has a particular interest in the intersection of ideas about gender and politics. Before turning to the study of the modern women's rights movement and the conservative countermovement, she focused on the woman suffrage movement, both nationally and in the American South. Her first book, New Women of the New South: The Leaders of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the Southern States, examined the historical and cultural obstacles to that movement in the American South and placed the southern movement in the context of the national. She was editor of One Woman, One Vote: Rediscovering the Woman Suffrage Movement, an anthology published to accompany the PBS film "One Woman, One Vote," and has published several other edited works on woman suffrage. She has also published a two-volume textbook on southern history co-edited with William A. Link, The South in the History of the Nation: A Reader (Bedford/St. Martin's). Believing fervently in the importance of historians disseminating scholarly findings to the public and the schools, Spruill has undertaken, in addition to her own research, projects in two states that encourage the writing and publication and reading of the history of women in those states. She is the co-editor of a two-volume anthology on women in Mississippi and a three-volume anthology on South Carolina women. She has served as an advisor for many museum exhibits, documentaries, and a feature film. Spruill is a former President of the Southern Association for Women's Historians. She has also served on the executive councils of the Southern Historical Association and the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive ERA. She is active in the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians (recently named to a second three-year term in its Distinguished Lecturers Program), and the British Association for American Studies (BAAS). She is a former Editorial Board member of the Journal of Southern History and the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography and is currently serving on the Editorial Board of the Journal of American Studies that is published by the British Association for American Studies (Cambridge University Press).Spruill has been recognized for outstanding teaching. Her research has been supported by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University; the National Endowment for the Humanities; the American Association of University Women; and the Gerald R. Ford Foundation, as well as the Wilson Center. Education B.A. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; M.A.T. Duke University; M.A. University of Virginia; Ph.D. University of Virginia Experience History Professor, University of South Carolina, 2004 to the present Hardy Fellow, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, 2006-2007 Associate Provost and Research Professor of History, Vanderbilt University, 2002-2004 History Professor, University of Southern Mississippi, 1990-2002 Assistant to the Dean of the Honors College and Director of the University Forum, 1985-1990 Assistant Director, Residential College, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, 1974-1977 Expertise U.S. History, particularly women's and gender history, and the American South Project Summary The Project: A book about the transformation of American political culture in the 1970s and the origins of the highly partisan, deeply polarized political climate we now inhabit. The central argument is that the great debates of the decade over women's rights and social roles played a crucial and largely unrecognized role in these developments. The struggle between women's right advocates and social conservatives pushed gender issues to front and center in American politics even as it led more women to become politically active. As the personal became political and the political became personal and issues were increasingly fraught with religious or moral significance, the public and the politicians found consensus and compromise more difficult to achieve. The issues that divided the women of the United States into warring camps in the 1970s divided the major parties and shaped the political discourse that has since dominated American politics. Major Publications "Gender and America's Right Turn," in Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in the 1970s, co-editors Bruce Schulman and Julian E. Zelizer, Harvard University Press, 2008. One Woman, One Vote: Rediscovering the Woman Suffrage Movement, ed. NewSage Press, 1995. Companion volume to the PBS documentary, "One Woman, One Vote." New Women of the New South: The Leaders of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the Southern States. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. RELATED CONTENT GENDER EQUALITY Progress is Not Linear: A Book Event with Dr. Marjorie J. Spruill Divided We Stand: The Battle Over Women's Rights and Family Values That Polarized American Politics By: Marjorie Spruill Women's Rights, Family Values, and the Polarization of American Politics WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR SCHOLARS Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center One Woodrow Wilson Plaza 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW Washington, DC 20004-3027 202-691-4000 The Wilson Center, chartered by Congress as the living memorial to President Woodrow Wilson, is the nation’s key non-partisan policy forum. In tackling global issues through independent research and open dialogue, the Center informs actionable ideas for Congress, the administration, and the broader policy community. DONATE NOW EMAIL UPDATES Weekly updates from the Wilson Center FOLLOW WILSON CENTER Facebook Twitter RSS Youtube Linked In Press About Support the Center 990 Forms/Budget Privacy SUPPORT the Wilson Center with every Amazon purchase. Close ShareThis Copy and Paste
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Print Marked Items
Spruill, Marjorie J.: Divided We Stand: The
Battle over Women's Rights and Family Values
That Polarized American Politics
Jessica Bushore
Library Journal.
142.1 (Jan. 1, 2017): p113.
COPYRIGHT 2017 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution
permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
Spruill, Marjorie J. Divided We Stand: The Battle over Women's Rights and Family Values That Polarized American
Politics. Bloomsbury USA. Feb. 2017.448p. notes, index. ISBN 9781632863140. $33; ebk. ISBN 9781632863157.
HIST
To celebrate the seminal 1977 Houston National Women's Conference (NWC) 40th anniversary, Spruill (history, Univ.
of South Carolina) covers decades of the fight for women's rights and the current resulting political polarization. In the
1970s, the need for increased rights rose to the forefront of political and societal consciousness, but it also splintered
liberals and conservatives over intrinsic beliefs about women's familial role. According to Spruill, the positive changes
peaked at the NWC, and then regressed, causing increased strife in the present day. She specializes in documenting the
pivotal role women played during key moments in American history, and her analysis of the NWC is a much-needed
update to Alice S. Rossi's Feminists in Politics: A Panel Analysis of the First National Women's Conference. However,
without the results of the 2016 presidential race, her thesis on the gradual diminishment of hard-won rights lacks
punch. Additionally, the density of information, both biographical and political, all but guarantees the book's relegation
to researchers and students, for which it is a seminal work. Index not seen. VERDICT An authoritative history of the
women's rights movement across decades arriving at its current incarnation.--Jessica Bushore, Xenia, OH
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Bushore, Jessica. "Spruill, Marjorie J.: Divided We Stand: The Battle over Women's Rights and Family Values That
Polarized American Politics." Library Journal, 1 Jan. 2017, p. 113. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA476562408&it=r&asid=865705d5a6cd573dfdb229e0be19b9ad.
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Divided We Stand: The Battle over Women's
Rights and Family Values That Polarized
American Politics
Colleen Mondor
Booklist.
113.9-10 (Jan. 1, 2017): p20.
COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
Divided We Stand: The Battle over Women's Rights and Family Values That Polarized American Politics. By Marjorie
J. Spruill. Feb. 2017. 448p. Bloomsbury, $33 (9781632863140). 305.42.
In this timely history, Spruill takes a deep look at the 1977 National Women's Conference and the political polarization
that subsequently developed between Republicans and Democrats over women's rights. As expected, all the major
names are here, from Gloria Steinem and Bella Abzug to Phyllis Schlafly and Lottie Beth Hobbs. Spruill goes far
behind the highlights, however, detailing how the battle for equal rights, which was primarily about pay, became
entangled in the more provocative cultural wars about homosexuality and abortion. Through the presidencies of Carter,
Reagan, and George H. W. Bush and dominating platform choices in both political parties, the fight for women's rights
devolved into farce-like levels as Schlafly led opposition to countless so-called feminist laws, even those protecting
battered women. The open-armed GOP embrace of the "pro-family movement" led feminists to declare there was a
"Republican war against women," which led to the near abandonment of such basic issues as equal pay and healthcare.
A solid work and a must-read for understanding political and cultural divisions over women's lives in today's America.
--Colleen Mondor
YA: Any research into womens history will benefit from access to this title; teen feminists, in particular, will find it
powerful. CM.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Mondor, Colleen. "Divided We Stand: The Battle over Women's Rights and Family Values That Polarized American
Politics." Booklist, 1 Jan. 2017, p. 20. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA479077883&it=r&asid=28effe256aea859be729c3c03321c23a.
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Spruill, Marjorie J.: DIVIDED WE STAND
Kirkus Reviews.
(Dec. 1, 2016):
COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Spruill, Marjorie J. DIVIDED WE STAND Bloomsbury (Adult Nonfiction) $30.00 2, 28 ISBN: 978-1-63286-314-0
A history of the federal push to bolster women's rights from successive presidents since John F. Kennedy--and the
resulting clashes with traditional conservative constituencies.With the culmination of the feminist political agenda in
1977 at Houston's National Women's Conference, there was a swift conservative reaction, led by Illinois political
activist Phyllis Schlafly and her organized minions. In this highly detailed but well-focused account, Spruill
(History/Univ. of South Carolina; New Women of the New South: The Leaders of the Woman Suffrage Movement in
the Southern States, 1993, etc.) reminds us that in the late 1970s, there were two women's movements. The first,
supported by both Democrats and Republicans, got its impetus from federally sponsored programs like the Kennedy
Commission (1963), which revealed "the inequities in public institutions, and the vulnerable situation of homemakers."
Furthermore, writes the author in her assiduously researched narrative, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
became "one of the most important pieces of legislation in advancing gender equity, the basis for many subsequent
feminist victories." On the other hand, more conservative and religious women became alarmed by the tilt toward
"liberation" from home and hearth as well as the determination by "libbers" to work alongside men, countenance
abortion, and, shockingly, love each other. (The support of lesbianism would rive even the most liberal feminist
agenda.) For the feminists, the move to become a party with real political clout occurred with the election of Bella
Abzug to Congress in 1971 and the forming of the National Women's Political Caucus around the leadership of Betty
Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Shirley Chisholm, and others. As women made staggering inroads into government agencies
and other areas under the administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford (largely thanks to his wife, Betty), the
anti-feminists staged a backlash by blocking the Comprehensive Child Development Act of 1971 (publicly funded
child care) as the "horrifying first step on the slippery slope toward a godless government invasion of the family."
There are countless kernels of amazing achievement and courage throughout this jam-packed, engaging history.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Spruill, Marjorie J.: DIVIDED WE STAND." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Dec. 2016. General OneFile,
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p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA471902004&it=r&asid=a1897ade1fa9ec67dcf8c8d50cc15360.
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Divided We Stand: The Battle Over Women's
Rights and Family Values That Polarized
American Politics
Publishers Weekly.
263.52 (Dec. 19, 2016): p114.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Divided We Stand: The Battle Over Women's Rights and Family Values That Polarized American Politics
Marjorie J. Spruill. Bloomsbury USA, $30 (448p) ISBN 978-1-63286-314-0
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
In this parable of how sensible and practical paths toward broader equality get overwhelmed by threat, fear, and
bigotry, historian Spruill (New Women of the New South) suggests that the current political landscape of paralyzing
divisiveness, hateful rhetoric, and persistent obstructionism took form in 1977, when the two women's movements of
the 1970s, each side purporting to represent the majority or speak for "real" American women, came to a head at the
National Women's Conference in Houston. Incensed that political equality would infringe on their privileges, a small
group of opponents to the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) organized and mobilized a bloc of religious and socially
conservative women with the threat that an overreaching government was out to destroy the American family and
traditional, Bible-based morals. Meanwhile, those in favor of the ERA rallied diverse women with a victorious vision
of full human rights. Spruill remains evenhanded in her treatment, tracing the tensions within each group and among
their supporters. The lasting outcome of the failed ERA, Spruill reveals, was the embrace of social conservatives into
the Republican party. They brought an antiabortion, profamily platform that propelled Reagan to the presidency and
has since been a GOP mainstay. Spruill's narrative is detailed and precise; her blow-by-blow accounts and alternating
chapters of moves and countermoves allows for repetition and lacks meaningful analysis, but her rigorous research and
intense accuracy will make this an indispensible handbook on the history of the National Women's Conference and its
enduring legacy on American politics. Agent: Lisa Adams, Garamond Agency. (Feb.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Divided We Stand: The Battle Over Women's Rights and Family Values That Polarized American Politics." Publishers
Weekly, 19 Dec. 2016, p. 114+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA475324330&it=r&asid=6d5254c308cf5fb18e2a9d92dffadd09.
Accessed 3 Oct. 2017.
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‘Four Days That Changed the World’: Unintended Consequences of a Women’s Rights Conference
By GILLIAN THOMASMARCH 6, 2017
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Gloria Steinem at the National Women’s Conference in 1977.
DIVIDED WE STAND
The Battle Over Women’s Rights and Family Values That Polarized American Politics
By Marjorie J. Spruill
Illustrated. 436 pp. Bloomsbury. $33.
Among feminists, Donald Trump’s election has prompted unprecedented soul-searching about What Went Wrong. The revelation that a majority of white women helped put Trump over the top cut especially deep. The initial mystery — how could women vote for that man? — gave way to betrayal: How could they do this to other women? Then, after some Kübler-Ross stages of grief, and a few million pink pussy hats, came the questions: How to harness the euphoric rage of the record-breaking women’s marches? How to make tangible progress, not merely prevent further losses?
To answer these riddles requires understanding how we got here, and Marjorie J. Spruill’s “Divided We Stand” offers a detailed if sometimes dense primer. Spruill, a professor of women’s, Southern and modern American history at the University of South Carolina, convincingly traces today’s schisms to events surrounding the National Women’s Conference, a four-day gathering in Houston in November 1977. At the time, Ms. magazine called the event — a federally funded initiative to identify a national women’s rights agenda — “Four Days That Changed the World.” So why is it that today, as Gloria Steinem recently observed, the conference “may take the prize as the most important event nobody knows about”?
In Spruill’s telling, the Houston conference was world-changing, but not entirely for the reasons the organizers had hoped. The event drew an estimated 20,000 activists, celebrities and other luminaries for a raucous political-convention-cum-consciousness-raising session. The delegates enacted 26 policy resolutions calling not just for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (then just three states shy of the 38 needed) but a wide range of measures including accessible child care, elimination of discriminatory insurance and credit practices, reform of divorce and rape laws, federal funding for abortion and — most controversially — civil rights for lesbians. Those “planks” later were bundled as a National Plan of Action and presented to President Jimmy Carter, amid much fanfare, in a report entitled “The Spirit of Houston.”
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Phyllis Schlafly Credit Getty Images
The conference had an unintended, equally revolutionary consequence, though: the unleashing of a women-led “family values” coalition that cast feminism not just as erroneous policy but as moral transgression. Led by Phyllis Schlafly, a small but savvy coalition of foot soldiers mobilized against the conference’s aims. These activists found common cause in their deep religiosity and opposition to feminism’s perceived diminishment of “real” womanhood. And although their leadership denied it, the group also had ties to white supremacists. “Divided We Stand” argues that the potency of these advocates and their successors reshaped not just the nation’s gender politics, but the politics of the Democratic and Republican Parties as well.
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The Houston conference originated with a 1975 executive order issued by President Ford, charging a National Commission on the Observance of International Women’s Year (thereafter known as the I.W.Y. Commission) that would, as Ford put it, “infuse the Declaration of Independence with new meaning and promise for women here and around the world.” Later that year, Congress tasked the commission with holding conferences in all 50 states to elect the delegates.
The state conferences that convened in the summer of 1977 proved to be anything but unified, and documenting that turmoil takes up much of Spruill’s attention. Members of the Schlafly coalition — which called itself the I.W.Y. Citizens Review Committee, or C.R.C. — doggedly attended each meeting, disrupting the proceedings and attempting to win inclusion among the representatives who would travel to Houston.
In the end, few C.R.C. representatives were elected among the more than 2,000 racially diverse delegates who headed to the Houston Convention Center. So Schlafly and her followers took another tack: They organized a daylong Pro-Life, Pro-Family Rally across town at the Astro Arena.
The chapters detailing these competing events are the best in “Divided We Stand.” The feminists’ conference was steeped in symbolism, starting with the lighting of a “torch of freedom” in Seneca Falls, N.Y. — site of the 1848 women’s conference marking the beginning of first-wave feminism — that over the next six weeks was carried to Houston by a relay of runners including icons like Billie Jean King. Speakers included three first ladies — Rosalynn Carter, Betty Ford and Lady Bird Johnson — as well as Coretta Scott King, the Texas representative Barbara Jordan, the anthropologist Margaret Mead, and fiery political newcomers like Ann Richards and Maxine Waters.
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In contrast, the family values rally was as much a religious revival as a political event. A sign placed next to the podium said it all: “Women’s Libbers, E.R.A. LESBIANS, REPENT. Read the BIBLE while YOUR [sic] ABLE.” Many of the attendees — who were nearly all white — were men. Among them was the archconservative California representative Robert Dornan, who exhorted the audience to let their members of Congress know, as one attendee put it, that “the great silent majority is on the move to take the nation under God’s guidance.”
After Houston, that contingent was more successful in making political inroads than its feminist counterparts. The difference, as documented by Spruill, was in its single-minded pursuit of those power brokers Dornan had commended to it. Most notably, it won over the Republican Party leadership. At the time of the commission’s formation, Republicans were moderate when it came to feminism; the 1976 party platform, for instance, included support for the E.R.A. But by the 1980 presidential election, that had changed; the “family values” coalition co-opted the party platform, won conversions on abortion from Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and propelled them — along with numerous other state and federal candidates — to victory.
In contrast, the Plan of Action landed with a thud on President Carter’s desk. A born-again Christian uneasy with alienating religious conservatives, Carter had inherited the conference initiative and never threw his full weight behind it — and indeed, had rebuffed organizers’ entreaties to come to Houston. Despite efforts by some White House staff members, the plan never became a legislative blueprint. With a wary White House that became outright hostile after Reagan’s election, a split Congress and feminists’ attention diverted to the E.R.A. ratification effort — which failed when the time for approval expired in 1982 — any hope of implementing the plan stalled in the 1980s. The Houston conference may have succeeded in awakening countless women to feminism, but most of its policy goals remain on the movement’s to-do lists.
These divergent narratives from 40 years ago offer many lessons to those hoping to maintain the momentum of the Jan. 21 women’s marches. Two of the most salient: Forge unity out of diversity and hold elected officials accountable. Early signs show that today’s feminists are fast learners. The “unity principles” issued by national march organizers incorporated race, immigration status, gender identity, sexual orientation, class and disability within multiple resolutions, instead of segregating them (as was the case with the Houston planks). A next step: Strengthen alliances between the majority-white marchers and the women of color who mobilized against Trump (and before that, led the Black Lives Matter movement). A second day of mass action — a nationwide “women’s strike” on March 8 — was an opportunity to show an even more united front. Meanwhile, women were vocal participants in the overflow crowds at congressional town halls held during last month’s recess, women-centric media are educating readers about grass- roots activism and thousands of women have begun preparing to run for office.
But perhaps the most auspicious sign came from the Republican representative Dave Brat of Virginia: He recently complained that “the women are in my grill no matter where I go.”
Gillian Thomas is an attorney for the A.C.L.U. Women’s Rights Project. She is the author of “Because of Sex: One Law, Ten Cases, and Fifty Years That Changed American Women’s Lives at Work.”
A version of this review appears in print on March 12, 2017, on Page BR12 of the Sunday Book Review with the headline: Turning Point. Today's Paper|Subscribe
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Book Review in Non-Fiction, History, United States
Divided We Stand: The Battle Over Women’s Rights and Family Values That Polarized American Politics
By Marjorie J. Spruill Bloomsbury USA 448 pp.
Reviewed by Susan Green
February 10, 2017
A timely recollection that feels especially charged given the current political climate.
Like most of us, publishers probably expected Hillary Clinton to win. That’s what I anticipated when I agreed to review Divided We Stand, Marjorie Spruill’s comprehensive history of the National Women’s Conference of 1977. Better known as the NWC, the conference was born of a 1975 congressional act that instructed delegates “to set goals for the elimination of all barriers to the full and equal participation of women in all aspects of American life.”
Spruill’s book looks very different with Donald Trump in the White House.
But the NWC featured people and political trends whose significance is all the greater given the election’s outcome. The book details how the conference provoked a bitter debate between feminists and conservative women activists. The resulting antagonism, Spruill contends, spilled over into party politics: “Whereas in the early 1970s both Republicans and Democrats supported the modern women’s movement, by 1980 the GOP had sided with the other women’s movement, the one that positioned family values as in opposition to women’s rights.”
Spruill offers substantial evidence that women’s rights had long been a bipartisan cause. Both Republicans and Democrats had endorsed passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) since the 1940s. In 1970, Spruill reports, “Women’s rights supporters from across the ideological spectrum and across the nation” marched to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. The following year, a “kaleidoscope” of women from both parties formed the National Women’s Political Caucus to encourage women’s participation in electoral politics.
Bipartisan congressional majorities also supported women’s rights. In 1972 alone, Congress passed Title IX (barring sex discrimination in educational institutions), the childcare tax credit, and stronger enforcement authority for the EEOC. And it was 1972 when both Strom Thurmond and Ted Kennedy voted for the ERA. Three years later, Congress established the conference and directed it to recommend a National Plan of Action to the president, who in turn was required to propose implementing legislation.
At this point, Spruill asserts, ideological differences began to emerge. Led by right-wing icon Phyllis Schlafly, conservative women fought the establishment of a national women’s rights policy. After years of combating communism and liberalism, Schlafly had taken up the anti-ERA cause in 1972. Later, she established the Eagle Forum as “an alternative to women’s lib” to contest feminism across the board.
Under Schlafly’s deft leadership, conservative women turned out en masse to oppose the conference. Many women responded to anti-abortion appeals from the Catholic Church. Schlafly also convinced Mormon leaders to instruct the Women’s Relief Society to resist the NWC’s feminist policies. And Schlafly continued to work with her longtime collaborators in the John Birch Society and other right-wing organizations.
Schlafly and her allies succeeded in sending 200 conservative delegates to the conference in Houston. But they were outnumbered four to one by feminist delegates. The NWC overwhelmingly endorsed 26 policies designed to promote women’s rights. It was a forceful and comprehensive plan.
Recognizing their inability to change the event’s feminist tenor, conservatives convened a competing pro-life, pro-family rally across town. The crowd of 15,000 cheered Schlafly and other speakers “enthusiastically urging women to subordinate themselves to the will of God, their pastors, and their husbands.”
The tensions that surfaced in Houston ultimately doomed the NWC’s recommendations. President Jimmy Carter balked. His report to Congress was “primarily a statement about accomplishments already made, not promises of further action.” The National Plan of Action was dead.
As Spruill documents, the 1980 presidential campaign cemented the parties’ split over women’s rights. The Democratic platform broadly endorsed feminist positions, including government-funded abortions for poor women. By contrast, the GOP abandoned the party’s 40-year support for the ERA and endorsed a constitutional amendment banning abortion. Republican orthodoxy embraces these anti-feminist policies even today.
Spruill’s blow-by-blow description of the NWC and its aftermath reflects exhaustive research. Her interviews of key participants both illuminate the narrative and preserve first-hand accounts for future scholars. Unfortunately, at times, the details overwhelm.
Is it essential to tell us that the San Jacinto Girl Scouts presented the colors to open the conference? Listing the titles of articles in the May 1973 issue of the Phyllis Schlafly Report seems excessive. These and similar minutiae can make it hard to follow the larger story.
And it is a story worth telling. Gloria Steinem’s 2015 memoir calls the NWC “the most important event nobody knows about.” Divided We Stand rectifies that omission. The book is the definitive record of a critical event in 20th-century American history.
To the extent that Spruill links today’s “seemingly intractable” political polarization to the NWC and its reverberations, she is less convincing. How did the conference contribute to the toxicity of present-day American politics? Spruill’s account goes a long way toward answering that tantalizing question, but not quite far enough.
In an eerie echo of 1977, feminists and conservatives are still gathering to promote conflicting agendas. The 2017 version featured hundreds of thousands of women’s rights supporters marching in protest the day after a far smaller group of conservatives attended Trump’s inauguration.
In her keynote address at the Women’s March on Washington, Steinem declared, “[W]e're never going home. We're staying together. And we're taking over.” I look forward to the next chapter.
Susan Green is a lawyer who has represented working women and men for over 20 years. She teaches women’s history and literature in Washington, DC, and was a senior review editor for the Washington Independent Review of Books from 2011 to 2014.
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FEATURESNEW BOOKSBIGGEST NEW BOOKSFICTIONNON-FICTIONALL CATEGORIES
Divided We Stand
MARJORIE J. SPRUILL
PUBLISHER BLOOMSBURY USA
DATE FEBRUARY 28, 2017
NON-FICTION
POLITICS
SOCIAL SCIENCES
The story of the battle over women's rights and family values that polarized American politics, organized around the 1977 National Women's Conference.
POSITIVE
BASED ON 5 REVIEWS
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MIXED
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WHAT THE REVIEWERS SAY
POSITIVE
GILLIAN THOMAS,
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
How to harness the euphoric rage of the record-breaking women’s marches? How to make tangible progress, not merely prevent further losses? To answer these riddles requires understanding how we got here, and Marjorie J. Spruill’s Divided We Stand offers a detailed if sometimes dense primer ... The chapters detailing these competing events are the best in Divided We Stand ... These divergent narratives from 40 years ago offer many lessons to those hoping to maintain the momentum of the Jan. 21 women’s marches. Two of the most salient: Forge unity out of diversity and hold elected officials accountable.
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KAY S. HYMOWITZ,
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Ms. Spruill’s honorable attention to the state meetings can drag her narrative at times, but she still manages to draw out a story crucial to understanding American politics over the past 40 years ... The 2016 election showed that women remain the most divided of identity groups. Some 53% of white female voters were willing to cast their ballots for a man whom feminists despise as a misogynist. And the question raised by the battle of 1977—who speaks for women?—still bedevils American politics.
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MIXED
SUSAN GREEN,
THE WASHINGTON INDEPENDENT REVIEW OF BOOKS
Spruill offers substantial evidence that women’s rights had long been a bipartisan cause. Both Republicans and Democrats had endorsed passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) since the 1940s ... As Spruill documents, the 1980 presidential campaign cemented the parties’ split over women’s rights. The Democratic platform broadly endorsed feminist positions, including government-funded abortions for poor women. By contrast, the GOP abandoned the party’s 40-year support for the ERA and endorsed a constitutional amendment banning abortion. Republican orthodoxy embraces these anti-feminist policies even today. Spruill’s blow-by-blow description of the NWC and its aftermath reflects exhaustive research. Her interviews of key participants both illuminate the narrative and preserve first-hand accounts for future scholars. Unfortunately, at times, the details overwhelm...minutiae can make it hard to follow the larger story ... How did the conference contribute to the toxicity of present-day American politics? Spruill’s account goes a long way toward answering that tantalizing question, but not quite far enough.
READ FULL REVIEW >>
SEE ALL REVIEWS >
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