Item Detail
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17417
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3
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0
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English
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In the Utah Vanguard : Amy Brown Lyman as a Progressive Mormon Activist, Welfare State Builder, and Modern Woman in a Dual-Career Family
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Santa Barbara, CA
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University of California, Santa Barbara
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445
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Ph.D. diss.
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"Centering on the life and experiences of Amy Brown Lyman (1872-1959), this dissertation examines social and political activism among late nineteenth and twentieth century Utah women. Through an agenda of Progressive Era reform, tens of thousands of these women united in a wide-ranging movement to improve conditions in their communities while laying the foundation for modern social services in the inter-mountain West. Lyman played a pivotal role in these activities through her position in the leadership of the National Women's Relief Society. Among the most important Relief Society endeavors was its support of the Federal Maternity and Infancy Act of 1921, better known as the Sheppard-Towner Act, which resulted in dramatic reductions in maternal and infant mortality rates in Utah and surrounding Western states. Largely through her direction of such efforts as these, Lyman obtained national recognition for her social work activities and earned praise and respect for the Relief Society. In my analysis of these developments, I seek not only to shed light on the largely unexamined activism of these women, but also, to demonstrate that previous studies of Progressive reform and maternalist activism, which have centered on Eastern elites, inadequately reflect conditions in the West where, among other differences, the federal government played a much larger role in stimulating the formation of social services." [Author's Abstract]