Alice Henry: The Power of Pen and Voice: The Life of an Australian-American Labor Reformer

Description

In this, the first biography of Alice Henry (1857-1943), Diane Kirkby presents us with an intelligent, formidable woman of great energy who was a pioneer in both the Australian and American labor movements early in this century and a feminist who fought for the rights of millions of women in both countries. Alice Henry The Power of Pen and Voice is sympathetically written and it is clear that in the course of the author's meticulous research she has developed great warmth for her subject and the friends who were central to her life, women such as the Australian writer Stella Miles Franklin, author of My Brilliant Career, who supported Alice Henry throughout her difficult old age. While empathizing with Alice Henry, readers can increase their understanding of a critical period in history, when progressive networks were far more international than might be expected and women played a central role in the creation of the welfare state.

"With insight, skill, and empathy, Kirkby contextualizes the life of a representative woman of the educated middle class who embraced the need to be self-supporting...In recovering Henry's 'industrial feminism,' Kirkby has made a major contribution to the debate over what constituted early twentieth-century feminism." The Journal of American History