Journal of Feminist Scholarship Volume 3 Issue 3 Fall 2012 Article 5 Fall 2012 Irish American Women: Forgotten First-Wave Feminists Sally Barr Ebest University of Missouri-St. Louis Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/jfs Part of the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Law and Gender Commons, and the Women's History Commons This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. Recommended Citation Ebest, Sally B.. 2018. "Irish American Women: Forgotten First-Wave Feminists." Journal of Feminist Scholarship 3 (Fall): 56-69. https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/jfs/vol3/iss3/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@URI. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Feminist Scholarship by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@URI. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Ebest: Irish American Women Irish American Women: Forgotten First-Wave Feminists Sally Barr Ebest, University of Missouri–St. Louis Abstract: Numerous books have been written about American feminism and its influence on education and society. But none have recognized the key role played by Irish American women in exposing injustice and protecting their rights. Certainly their literary heritage, inherent knowledge of English, and membership in the single largest ethnic group gave them an advantage. But their dual positions as colonized, second-class citizens of their country and their religion gave them their political edge, a trait that has been evident since the Irish first stepped off the boat and that continues to this day. This essay focuses on the first wave of these feminist messages by introducing Irish American writers and activists who emerged between the 1830s and 1960s.