Preeminent Kentucky reformer and women's rights advocate
Madeline McDowell Breckinridge (1872--1920) was at the forefront of
social change during the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. A descendant of Henry Clay and the daughter of two of
Kentucky's most prominent families, Breckinridge had a remarkably
varied activist career that included roles in the promotion of
public health, education, women's rights, and charity. Founder of
the Lexington Civic League and Associated Charities, Breckinridge
successfully lobbied to create parks and playgrounds and to
establish a juvenile court system in Kentucky. She also became
president of the Kentucky Equal Rights Association, served as vice
president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, and
even campaigned across the country for the League of Nations. In
the first biography of Breckinridge since 1921, Madeline McDowell
Breckinridge and the Battle for a New South, Melba Porter Hay draws
on newly discovered correspondence and rich personal interviews
with her female associates to illuminate the fascinating life of
this important Kentucky activist. Deftly balancing Breckinridge's
public reform efforts with her private concerns, Hay tells the
story of Madeline's marriage to Desha Breckinridge, editor of the
Lexington Herald, and how she used the match to her advantage by
promoting social causes in the newspaper. Hay also chronicles
Breckinridge's ordeals with tuberculosis and amputation, and
emotionally trying episodes of family betrayal and sex scandals.
Hay describes how Breckinridge's physical struggles and personal
losses transformed her from a privileged socialite into a selfless
advocate for the disadvantaged. Later as vice president of the
National American Women Suffrage Association, Breckinridge lobbied
for Kentucky's ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, which gave
women the right to vote in 1920. While devoting much of her life to
the woman suffrage movement on the local and national levels, she
also supported the antituberculosis movement, social programs for
the poor, compulsory school attendance, and laws regulating child
labor. In bringing to life this extraordinary reformer, Hay shows
how Breckinridge championed Kentucky's social development during
the Progressive Era.
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