| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 106.5

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 106.5 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Carolyn J. Lawes. Women and Reform in a New England Community 1813–1860. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. 2000. Pp. x, 265. $39.95.

This book traces the development of women's social organizations in Worcester, Massachusetts, from the period of disestablishment through the emergence of the women's movement during the 1850s. Paying particularly close attention to women's sewing circles and the Children's Friend Society, Carolyn J. Lawes argues that these organizations provided a feminist sensibility that was crucial to the formation of women's rights organizations in the city. 1

The first chapter examines the split that occurred in the First Church of Worcester in 1820. Three wealthy and powerful women, dissatisfied with the uninspired preaching of their new minister, left to form the Calvinist Church. Lawes examines the inner workings of the church, revealing, not surprisingly, that a majority of its congregants were women. More surprising is the power they exercised. At the Calvinist Church, women voted along with the men in the selection of ministers. While Lawes notes that they always agreed with the men in their congregation and thus did not challenge male decisions, this exercise of power in a religious congregation is particularly striking given the growing evidence in other works of the extent to which women's leadership in the Protestant churches of the time was being circumscribed. . . .

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