The visionary achievements of Isabella (Isabel) Caroline Somerset, like the temperance cause she led, have undeservedly faded into obscurity. By her contemporaries she was feted for her social activism, and at the time of her death in 1921, Isabel Somerset's vigorous reform efforts were internationally recognised and acclaimed by humanitarian, political and social-reform organisations and the labour movement. Beginning with local temperance and philanthropic work, Isabel Somerset progressed to become president of the British Women's Temperance Association, which she gradually transformed from a single-issue organisation into one committed to women's rights and a broad range of social initiatives; the BWTA became a potent pressure-group force in the politically influential, late-nineteenth-century temperance movement. Discouraged by the existing punitive, futile methods used to combat alcoholism, she founded a farm colony for female inebriates and employed a pioneering rehabilitation programme based upon therapeutic treatment and life-style changes. Through her close co-operation with American temperance icon Frances Willard, Isabel Somerset strengthened the bonds between the Anglo-American and international temperance and women's movements. Isabel Somerset's activism did not go unchallenged. In 1893 she successfully overcame the BWTA social conservatives' attempts to unseat her, and thereafter expanded the membership to hitherto unprecedented levels. In 1897-8 her position on state-regulated prostitution in India created a controversy which reverberated beyond the Association to encompass its sister organizations and proved temporarily detrimental to Somerset's reputation and credibility. Isabel survived this disputation, retaining her presidency and succeeding Willard as president of the World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union following her death in 1898. Isabel Somerset was a devout Christian, compassionate humanitarian, temperance activist, committed social reformer and women's rights campaigner, a charismatic leader and eloquent orator. Her roles of reformer and women's advocate, as revealed anew in the pages of this biography, place her in the pantheon of notable Victorian female reformers.

Against a backdrop of increasing democratic freedom and the associated process of aristocratic decline, this book examines the political influence of the leading Tory hostesses, the Marchionesses of Londonderry. Over one hundred and fifty years, from 1800-1959, these women were patrons and confidantes to key political figures such as Disraeli, Bonar Law, Edward Carson and Ramsay MacDonald. By the late nineteenth century upper-class women were at the height of their prowess, exerting political sway by private means whilst exploiting more public avenues of political work: canvassing, addressing meetings and leading the new associations established in an attempt to educate a mass electorate. At that time this hybrid of private and public aristocratic politicking aroused little criticism but, by the interwar period, the alleged hold that the 7th Marchioness of Londonderry, Edith Vane-Tempest-Stewart, had over MacDonald prompted widespread criticism of her role as the 'Mother' of the National Government. The Ladies of Londonderry offers the first examination of the powerful political hostesses of the Anglo-Irish establishment and sheds considerable light on the workings of nineteenth- and twentieth-century politics.

The book behind the Netflix series, starring Octavia Spencer 'One of the most fabulous African-American figures of the twentieth century' Ishmael Reed Madam Walker was the first free-born child in her family, growing up in abject poverty in post-Civil War America. From humble beginnings, she overcame societal prejudice, family betrayals and epic business rivalries to pioneer cosmetics that revolutionised black hair care, build a beauty empire, and become one of the wealthiest self-made women in America. Not only an astute businesswoman, but a passionate activist and philanthropist, Madam Walker provided jobs and training for thousands of African American women across the country, and used her wealth to fight for equality, forming friendships with important civil rights voices such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington and Ida B. Wells-Barnett along the way. Drawn from more than two decades of research by her great-great-granddaughter, journalist and historian A'Lelia Bundles, Self Made is the definitive biography of Madam Walker's inspirational life and an illuminating insight into the larger African American struggle in the early twentieth century. 'An important piece of history' Washington Post 'A fascinating portrait of an astonishing woman' Kirkus Reviews Previously published as On Her Own Ground

The Origins of UNICEF traces the history of the founding of the world's most well-known and often controversial relief aid organization for children. UNICEF modeled itself after several national organizations as well as some of the early twentieth-century transnational and international relief aid organizations, catering to a clientele that many observers claimed would be impossible to resist or ignore. In only a few years, UNICEF's programs provided relief aid to millions of children in locations around the globe, but the atmosphere of post-war cooperation, quickly supplanted by Cold War tensions, caused UNICEF's efforts to be scrutinized lest they be too closely aligned with either the United States or the Soviet Bloc. UNICEF remains one of the most highly regarded and effective child relief-aid organizations in the world. The story of its founding and its first years as an aid organization provide insight into how an international, apolitical, philanthropic organization must maneuver through political and cultural tensions in order to achieve its goal of mitigating human suffering.

Intellectual Philanthropy: The Seduction of the Masses by AurelieVialette examines the practice of philanthropy in modern Spain. Through detailed studies of popular music, collective readings, dramas, working-class manuals, and fiction, Vialette reveals how depictions of urban philanthropic activities can inform our understanding of interactions in the economic, cultural, religious,and educational spheres, class power dynamics, and gender roles in urban Spanish society.

In Phoebe Apperson Hearst: A Life in Power and Politics Alexandra M. Nickliss offers the first biography of one of the Gilded Age's most prominent and powerful women. A financial manager, businesswoman, and reformer, Phoebe Apperson Hearst was one of the wealthiest and most influential women of the era and a philanthropist, almost without rival, in the San Francisco Bay Area. Hearst was born into a humble middle-class family in rural Missouri in 1842, yet she died a powerful member of society's urban elite in 1919. Most people know her as the mother of William Randolph Hearst, the famed newspaper mogul, and as the wife of George Hearst, a mining tycoon and U.S. senator. By age forty-eight, however, Hearst had come to control her husband's extravagant wealth after his death. She shepherded the fortune of the family estate until her own death, demonstrating her intelligence and skill as a financial manager. Hearst supported a number of significant urban reforms in the Bay Area, across the country, and around the world, giving much of her wealth to organizations supporting children, health reform, women's rights and well-being, higher education, municipal policy formation, progressive voluntary associations, and urban architecture and design, among other endeavors. She worked to exert her ideas and implement plans regarding the burgeoning Progressive movement and was the first female regent of the University of California, which later became one of the world's leading research institutions. Hearst held other prominent positions as the first president of the Century Club of San Francisco, first treasurer of the General Federation of Woman's Clubs, first vice president of the National Congress of Mothers, president of the Columbian Kindergarten Association, and head of the Woman's Board of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. Phoebe Apperson Hearst tells the story of Hearst's world and examines the opportunities and challenges that she faced as she navigated local, national, and international corridors of influence, rendering a penetrating portrait of a powerful and often contradictory woman.

Synonymous with conflict and humanitarian aid, the mandate of the International Red Cross (ICRC) is to protect the wounded victims of war, civilians, prisoners and refugees alike. In Memoirs of a Red Cross Doctor, Frank Ryding recounts the missions he undertook with the Red Cross during a career spanning 35 years. Having worked as a doctor in many of the world s war zones and natural disasters from the 'killing field' era of Cambodia, to Afghanistan, Chechnya, Somalia, Pakistan and Sudan his is an account of observation and also personal experience, contrasting the serious, the terrifying, the heart-rending and the heart-warming. It is also the story of the victims who suffer the consequences of war and disaster. It shows both their courage and that of the aid agencies sent to help them. As Frank recalls from some Somali graffiti: "It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness'.

National service and volunteerism enjoy a rich history in the United States and an emergent future in other parts of the world. However, there remains relatively scant evidence of overall impact of national service programs and volunteer effectiveness. This condition continues to threaten national service and volunteer programs with the risk of defunding and/or the risk of not investing sufficiently from the start. This book brings together a selection of diverse chapters written by a combination of academicians, students, and practitioners from three countries and across multiple states in the United States. Each chapter approaches its topic uniquely but links with all others in identifying the impacts of service and volunteerism for volunteers, for beneficiaries of service, for the institution of volunteering, and/or for whole communities. The book is divided in five sections: (1) developing volunteer initiatives to achieve impact, (2) impact for and by youth volunteers, (3) impact in social or policy areas, specifically economy and financial success, education, and emergency response, (4) international perspectives with focus on Chile, Venezuela, the United Kingdom, and the post-communist states of Lithuania and Romania, and (5) conclusion with summary and suggestions for future research and practice.