Woman’s Work as the Work of the World - Anya Jabour. Sophonisba Breckinridge: Championing Women’s Activism in Modern America. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2019. vii + 322 pp. $29.95 (paperback), ISBN 978-0252084515.

Abstract

Sophonisba Breckinridge's (1866Breckinridge's ( -1948 work on behalf of women's rights, the poor, and the dispossessed spanned multiple reform efforts: legal aid for immigrants, antilynching legislation, labor protections for workers, a minimum employment age, citizenship rights for women, and many others. From her early connections at Hull House to a nearly fiftyyear career at the University of Chicago, Breckinridge labored in the background of Progressive Era and New Deal reforms. Moreover, her work as cofounder for the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and as a delegate to the Seventh Pan-American Conference bridged national boundaries. Anya Jabour's biography of Breckinridge, Sophonisba Breckinridge: Championing Women's Activism in Modern America, deftly weaves Breckinridge's life into major reform movements and demonstrates the ways in which Breckinridge alternately shaped and was shaped by the social and political forces of her time.Detailing Breckinridge's vast and tireless activism is a daunting task. She worked across multiple decades, labored in various locations, and embraced numerous social and political causes. She worked to reform child and maternal welfare, install social work within academic departments at the University of Chicago, worked on behalf of women's rights through the League of Women Voters, advocated for women workers, and embraced the World War I peace movement. Jabour organizes her biography thematically rather than strictly chronologically. She outlines Breckinridge's early life, traces her academic endeavors, and then explores her work in the women's rights and peace movements.Jabour's first three chapters trace Breckinridge's Kentucky roots. She was born at the end of the Civil War to an often-pregnant, sickly mother and a father recently returned from military service in the Confederacy. Breckinridge was close with her father. He practiced law after the War and won a seat in Congress in 1884. Her parents recognized Breckinridge as exceptional and encouraged her to study and achieve independence. She attended Wellesley in Massachusetts, where she would reject the white supremacist beliefs