Item Detail
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13275
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2
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0
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English
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American Women and Conservative Religion in the Post-War Decades : Southern Baptists and Mormon Women's Magazines, 1945-1975
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Washington State University
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Ph.D. diss.
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"The magazines for women of the Southern Baptist Convention and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints during the three decades after World War II reflected both the theologies of the two denominations and the time period in which they were written. Their attitudes toward women were governed by the theologies as they stated that the family was the basic institution of society and that women had a special role in the family as homemakers. The historical context determined the challenges that the magazines responded to, but it was their focus on what they called traditional values that shaped the response to such issues as divorce, juvenile delinquency, campus unrest, and the civil rights and women's rights movements. The magazines are Royal Service for Southern Baptists and the Relief Society Magazine for Mormons. When the Mormons discontinued the Relief Society Magazine in 1971, the church's general adult magazine Ensign and the Relief Society Courses of Study provided the basic sources. The women of these denominations accepted the nineteenth century idea of religion as women's sphere. According to authors in the magazines of both denominations, women were more sensitive than men to religious and moral issues. In the home, they were to be especially vigilant to see that the family members maintained proper values, a task that they could also perform in the wider society. Women of the Southern Baptist Convention were able to use the idea of religion as women's sphere to fill almost any role in the church short of being an ordained minister while Mormon women gathered together in church-related groups to reinforce among themselves ideas they cherished. This difference is explained by the strongly patriarchal, authoritarian nature of the Mormon church, which meant it could get men to do virtually all its missionary work. The looser Southern Baptist organization and a reliance on voluntarism meant the denomination had to turn to its women to fulfill more tasks." [Author's abstract]