# Funding Feminism: Monied Women, Philanthropy, and the Women’s Movement, 1870–1967

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/books/funding-feminism-monied-women-philanthropy-and-the-womens-movement-1870-1967/
- Published: 2017-10-20T11:26:00+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**How did wealthy women use philanthropy to advance the rights of all women — and
what were the costs of that generosity? Joan Marie Johnson’s history reveals the
complex, sometimes troubling, relationship between money and feminist progress, 
with lessons that resonate strongly today.**

In _Funding Feminism_, Joan Marie Johnson examines an understudied dimension of 
women’s history: how a group of affluent white women from the late nineteenth through
the mid-twentieth centuries advanced the status of all women through acts of philanthropy.

This cadre of activists included **Phoebe Hearst**, the mother of William Randolph
Hearst; **Grace Dodge**, granddaughter of Wall Street magnate William Earle Dodge;
and **Ava Belmont**, who married into the Vanderbilt family fortune.

Motivated by their own experiences of sexism, and focusing on women’s need for economic
independence, these benefactors sought to expand women’s access to higher education,
promote suffrage, and champion reproductive rights, as well as to provide assistance
to working-class women. In a time when women still wielded limited political power,
philanthropy was perhaps the most potent tool they had.

However, even as these wealthy women exercised considerable influence, their activism
had significant limits. The strings attached to their giving engendered resentment
and jeopardised efforts to build coalitions across racial and class lines. As the
struggle for women’s economic and political power continues today, Johnson’s history
reveals how generous women helped shape the movement. It also shows that tensions
over wealth and power that persist in the modern movement have deep historical roots.

For anyone working in fundraising, grantmaking, or donor relations, _Funding Feminism_
offers a rare and thought-provoking perspective on the power dynamics that have 
always existed between those who give and those who receive, and the ways in which
philanthropic generosity can both empower and constrain the causes it supports.

## **About **Joan Marie Johnson

Joan Marie Johnson is a historian and Director for Faculty in the Office of the 
Provost at [Northwestern University](https://www.northwestern.edu). She received
her PhD from UCLA in women’s and Southern history, and taught history at Northeastern
Illinois University for twelve years. She was co-founder and co-director of the 
Newberry Seminar on Women and Gender at the Newberry Library in Chicago. She is 
the author of several books on American women’s history, race, social reform, and
philanthropy, including _Southern Women at the Seven Sister Colleges_ and _Southern
Ladies, New Women_.

## **Reviews**

> “This compelling work of original and much-needed research will be of interest
> not only to those who study the history of feminist activism but to those with
> an interest in the power that private money wields in social justice circles.”
> **
> _Library Journal_**

> “A riveting new vantage point on the fight for women’s rights in the twentieth
> century. The scope of Johnson’s book is as generous as the narrative is nuanced
> and compelling.”
> _**Reviews in American History**_

> “Johnson makes a careful and persuasive case that a cluster of wives and daughters
> of major railroad, real estate, manufacturing, banking, and mining magnates used
> their inheritances to create opportunities for their ‘sisters’ in a sexist world.”
> _**
> American Historical Review**_

> “Johnson’s book is a strong reminder of the progress that women have made in the
> past 150 years, and I believe it will fuel awareness about the need for more women
> to give major gifts for gender equality today.” 
> **Kiersten Marek, _Philanthropy
> Women_**

> “Highly readable and relevant for anyone interested in women’s history, philanthropy,
> and social justice.” 
> _**Indiana Magazine of History**_

**Buy the book from [Amazon.co.uk](https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1469659077?tag=219).**