Able-Bodied Womanhood

Against the backdrop of national debate about female duties and well-being, this book follows middle-class women as they learned about physiology and hygiene through popular health literature, voluntary clubs, and schools in Boston. The pursuit of health also enabled the women to explore the nature of womanhood, and discover the meanings.

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This study concerns itself with the relationship between popular health and social conditions in middle-class Boston from 1830-1900. Women's lives, in particular, reveal the social significance of ideas about health during that period. Against the backdrop of national debate about female duties and well-being this book follows middle-class women as they learned about physiology and hygiene through popular health literature, voluntary clubs, and schools in Boston. The pursuit of health also enabled middle-class women to explore the nature of womanhood, and to discover both conventional and new meanings.