An Encouragement for Women to Join Reform Movements
Working Women of the Last Half Century: The Lesson of Their Lives
Notes: A feminist call to middle and upperclass women to join social reform and philanthropy movements, written by a noted temperance advocate.
In this book, she offers biographies of ten women who were active in social reform movements (the poet Anna Barbauld; the writer Hannah More; the African missionary Hannah Kilham, et al.). Balfour begins by encouraging women who work at home: "Let her never think home a narrow sphere—her influence begins there, but not confined there, it goes forth far and wide...what the heart is to the body, such is the home power to the virtues of a nation."
But Balfour explains, using the examples of the women she profiles, that women are not restricted to the home if they have a calling elsewhere. "Let her not repine if some unusual path opens before her, that calls her from the quietude she loves, demands sacrifices, exposes her to the ordeal of exaggerated censure or praise—those two red-hot ploughshares! Let her but be sure she is right in the sight of God."
At 15, Balfour (née Lucas; 1808–1878) married an alcoholic man nearly twice her age. Her married life was difficult until 1837, when her husband took the temperance pledge and sobered up. After that, Balfour became an effective temperance speaker and a prolific writer on reform causes.
x, 384, 16 [ads] pages.
Edition + Condition: First edition. Extremities showing some wear,with a horizontal split in the cloth at the top of the spine; bookplate removed from front pastedown. Generally very good.
Publication: London etc. W. & F. G. Cash etc. 1854.
Item No: #308182
Sold