Winnifred Harper Cooley

Winnifred Harper Cooley (October 2, 1874 – October 20, 1967) was an American author and lecturer.

Winnifred Harper Cooley
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BornOctober 2, 1874
Terre Haute, Indiana
DiedOctober 20, 1967
Occupation(s)Author and lecturer
Notable workThe New Womanhood

Early life

Born in Terre Haute, Indiana, she was the daughter of Ida Husted Harper.[1]

Cooley graduated in 1896 with an A.B. in Ethics from Stanford University.[2]

Personal life

In 1899, she married George Elliot Cooley, a Unitarian minister.[2] The couple lived in Vermont and Michigan before finally settling in New York City.[2] Cooley was widowed in 1926.[2]

Professional life

Cooley was a prolific writer.[1] Her best known work is The New Womanhood (1904). In The New Womanhood, Cooley lists the achievements of the New Woman as 1- education (lower, higher, professional), 2- employment (industrial, commercial), and 3- recognition (legal and civil).[3]

In "The Younger Suffragists" (1913), Cooley distinguishes herself and the "younger feminists" from the "older suffragists" and their idea that gaining the ballot will change the world for women.[4] Although the term would become widespread in the 1960s and 1970s, only a small group of women called themselves feminists in the early 20th century.[5][6] Cooley was among this first generation of self-proclaimed feminists. According to Cooley, "A feminist is always a suffragist, but a suffragist is not always a feminist."[6] Cooley saw the suffragists as more conservative than the broader outlooked feminists.[6] For feminists, suffrage was a path to complete social revolution.[4]

Beginning in 1923, Cooley hosted a biweekly dinner forum facetiously called "The Morons" which drew as many as 300 attendees.[2]

References
  1. McCormick, Mike (2005-01-01). Terre Haute: Queen City of the Wabash. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 9780738524061.
  2. Kessler, Carol Farley (1995-01-01). Daring to Dream: Utopian Fiction by United States Women Before, 1950. Syracuse University Press. ISBN 9780815626558.
  3. Cassedy, Steven (2014-01-01). Connected: How Trains, Genes, Pineapples, Piano Keys, and a Few Disasters Transformed Americans at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century. Stanford University Press. p. 135. ISBN 9780804788410. Winnifred Harper Cooley.
  4. Keetley, Dawn (2005-02-22). A Documentary History of American Feminism: 1900 To 1960. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9780742522251.
  5. Dicker, Rory (2016-01-26). A History of U.S. Feminisms. Seal Press. ISBN 9781580056144.
  6. Weber, Sandra (2016-03-30). The Woman Suffrage Statue: A History of Adelaide Johnson's Portrait Monument to Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony at the United States Capitol. McFarland. ISBN 9781476624228.
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