Relations of Rescue The Search for Female Moral Authority in the American West, 1874-1939

In this study of late nineteeth-century moral reform, Peggy Pascoeexamines four specific cases--a home for Chinese prostitutes in San Francisco,California; a home for polygamous Mormon women in Salt Lake City, Utah; a homefor unmarried mothers in Denver, Colorado; and a program for American Indians onthe Omaha Reservation in Nebraska--to tell the story of the women whoestablished missionary rescue homes for women in the American West. Focusing ontwo sets of relationships--those between women reformers and their maleopponents, and those between women reformers and the various groups of womenthey sought to shelter--Pascoe traces the gender relations that framed thereformers' search for female moral authority, analyzes the interaction betweenwomen reformers and the women who entered the rescue homes, and raisesprovocative questions about historians' understanding of the dynamics of socialfeminism, social control, and intercultural relations.