To Be Young Was Very Heaven Women in New York Before the First World War [Paperback]

In the years before World War I, New York City's Greenwich Village was a place of great artistic and political ferment. Political causes attracted throngs of supporters. Artistic movements filled cafes and restaurants with boisterous conversation. And for the first time, women began to seize power and shape the landscape of the time: Margaret Sanger began her crusade for birth control; Mabel Dodge hosted salons for the avant-garde; Dorothy Day founded the Catholic Workers Movement; Elizabeth Gurley Flynn helped to organize the Workers of the World. The list of women who played integral roles in American life and letters then is endless, and Sandra Adickes captures them all while evoking the now-lost paradise that New York offered to women at the turn of the century.

Sandra E. Adickesis professor emeritus of English at Winona State University.

A great history of the important women living in New York City before WWI who helped to shape the social consciousness of the twentieth century.

. . . It's heart is in the right place and it succeeds in illustrating a chapter in history. New York Times Book Review

A rich cast of fiery, romantic idealists. The Sunday Times Bookshop (UK)

A clear, readable portrait of a period of women's history worth rediscovering. Library Journal

Introduction * 1912: New York Enters a New Era * Movers and Shakers: The Forerunners * Movers and Shakers: The New Women * The Great Movements: Suffrage * The Great Movements: Economic Justice * The Great Movements: Birth Control * The New Woman in Love * Arts and Letters