The University of Illinois Press has published a biography on the important twentieth-century reformer and academic Sophonisba Breckenridge: Sophonisba Breckinridge: Championing Women's Activism in Modern America (2020), by Anya Jabour (University of Montana). A description from the Press:
Sophonisba Breckinridge's remarkable career stretched from the Civil War to the Cold War. She took part in virtually every reform campaign of the Progressive and New Deal eras and became a nationally and internationally renowned figure. Her work informed women's activism for decades and continues to shape progressive politics today.
Anya Jabour's biography rediscovers this groundbreaking American figure. After earning advanced degrees in politics, economics, and law, Breckinridge established the University of Chicago's School of Social Service Administration, which became a feminist think tank that promoted public welfare policy and propelled women into leadership positions. In 1935, Breckinridge’s unremitting efforts to provide government aid to the dispossessed culminated in her appointment as an advisor on programs for the new Social Security Act. A longtime activist in international movements for peace and justice, Breckinridge also influenced the formation of the United Nations and advanced the idea that "women’s rights are human rights." Her lifelong commitment to social justice created a lasting legacy for generations of progressive activists.
Advance praise:
"In propulsive prose, Anya Jabour brings to life progressive feminist Sophonisba Breckinridge, whose forty-year career as an advocate for social justice provides a model of 'passionate patience' for progressives in the twenty-first century."--Robyn Muncy
"Anya Jabour has written an outstanding biography of Sophonisba Breckinridge. She has thoroughly convinced me of Breckinridge's important role in American and women's history and how much of each is revealed by her lifelong activism. The research is expansive and the writing is flawless."--Joan M. Johnson
More information is available here.
-- Karen Tani
