The Progressive Era was a period of unprecedented social and political change for all Americans, but it was an especially important historical moment for women living in the American South. As Reconstruction came to a close, Southern women faced a swiftly changing political sphere, rapid industrialization, and a region ripe for educational, social, and political reform. Southern Women in the Progressive Era is a unique documentary collection that demonstrates how different types of Southern women envisioned their roles in the national movement. The collection includes memoirs, personal letters, speeches, and editorials, many of which have gone unpublished until now. An apt addition to the University of South Carolina Press's Women's Diaries and Letters of the South series, this volume chronicles Southern women's motivations and fears, challenges and accomplishments, as they understood them. A true project of recovery, Southern Women in the Progressive Era features the experiences of Southern women in their own words.

Coeditors Giselle Roberts and Melissa Walker use the personal writings of Southern women from across the region to weave together a narrative that demonstrates their varied participation in progressive reform. The selections range from the autobiography of itinerant preacher Mary Lee Cagle to the persuasive speeches of Virginia novelist Mary Johnston, and prove that there were more ways than one to be a Southern woman. The volume is divided into three major parts and directly addresses how Southern women envisioned and enacted change through various reform communities. Collectively, the selections reveal how Southern women actively participated in, and in some cases initiated, reform efforts in education, social work, politics, public health, and labor. The volume contains numerous single-authored pieces, but collections penned by multiple authors, like the reports of Florida's first state health nurses, showcase undeniable gems. Read alongside one another, the reports demonstrate the nuances of women's political ideologies within a single state, revealing the spectrum of Southern women's politics. They add texture to one another's accounts in ways that would be perhaps impossible with a single author.

Undeniably, race was an important aspect of Progressive Era politics as it helped reformers determine which communities received attention, how their concerns were addressed, but most importantly, whether measures taken would be voluntary or compulsory. Directly or otherwise, race emerges as a major theme throughout, and in some cases, it is positioned as a major linchpin of Southern women's reform ideology. This can be seen in the differences among how white female reformers discussed problems facing white versus nonwhite communities, but also in how they went about addressing concerns facing various reform communities. These differences in approach are some of the most interesting portions of the book, as they demonstrate how multilayered reform ideologies put reformers at odds with other women. Examples of this phenomenon are perfectly captured in the articles and editorials published in Mary and Louise Poppenheim's monthly journal Keystone, but can also be found in the speeches of Virginia Johnston. Taken collectively, these accounts demonstrate how Lost Cause sentiment and antebellum beliefs pervaded Southern white women's approaches to Progressive reform.

A lone criticism of Southern Women in the Progressive Era is the lack of African American women's voices. Of the more than twenty subjects included in the volume, only two African American women's stories are featured. Despite the myriad ways that race, gender, and class prevented African American women from leaving behind as many written documents as their white American peers, their firsthand accounts exist. As demonstrated by the inclusion of Mary McLeod Bethune's memoir, the materials held by historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) offer unique insights into the inner lives of black women activists. Archives held by predominately white institutions are also repositories for primary sources written by African American women reformers. The letters of industrial school founder Elizabeth Evelyn Wright, which are included in the Voorhees Industrial School Papers at the University of South Carolina, are a particularly rich example. Wright's letters along with others like them would help to diversify this narrative and highlight the unique obstacles that African American women reformers faced during the Progressive Era. The choice to focus almost exclusively on sources that center on the experiences of white women hinders the editors’ mission and prevents a relevant and important clash among the sources. Including only two African American women's words furthers the idea that African American women were largely absent from reform work during this formative period. Further, relying on sources that concentrate on white women sidesteps an important opportunity to expand what is already known about women's lives during this dynamic era of change.

Nevertheless, Southern Women in the Progressive Era is an important documentary collection for any student or teacher of American women's history. The selections add to what is known about the inner lives of women in the American South during the final decade of the nineteenth century and the opening decades of the twentieth century. Revealing their participation in educational reform, social work, and labor rights organizing, the volume offers a unique opportunity to understand Southern women's lives as they did.