Three decades of women’s history in the United States

powerful and influential women’s movement of the early twentieth century which focused on social welfare and labor reform legislation which involved women and children, issues such as banning child labor, limiting women’s working hours and establishing minimum wage rates, banning sweatshop work . It is in this period that the work of women’s historians has had the most profound impact on the larger picture of US history. . Previous historians’ attitude to the upsurge in government activism and reform energies in this era was fundamentally skeptical as a cover for state sponsored “social control” designed to repress the radical political ambitions of workers and immigrants.

This evaluation has changed dramatically with the impact of women’s history scholarship. Feminist historical research has shown that the Progressive era women’s movement, led by such figures such as