Elisabeth Israels Perry is professor emeritus of history and women's and gender studies at Saint Louis University. She has published extensively on American women's history, and is the author of Belle Moskowitz: Feminine Politics and the Exercise of Power in the Age of Alfred E. Smith, a biography of her grandmother and one of the original "Women of the La Guardia Administration."

Elisabeth Israels Perry explodes traditional assumptions that once they had the vote, American women settled passively into voting as their husbands and fathers had done. Her formidable research and vivid prose reveal that in the nation's largest city, from Greenwich Village to Harlem, women civic activists set their sights on corrupt judges, policemen, and politicians. Aligned with Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, they fought to reshape courts and prisons, to rehabilitate sex workers and to punish pimps, to modernize city government and to sustain progressive agendas. Their vision, practical ideas, and sophisticated political skills continue to resonate in our own time.

Elisabeth Israels Perry is professor emeritus of history and women's and gender studies at Saint Louis University. She has published extensively on American women's history, and is the author of Belle Moskowitz: Feminine Politics and the Exercise of Power in the Age of Alfred E. Smith, a biography of her grandmother and one of the original "Women of the La Guardia Administration."

Elisabeth Israels Perry explodes traditional assumptions that once they had the vote, American women settled passively into voting as their husbands and fathers had done. Her formidable research and vivid prose reveal that in the nation's largest city, from Greenwich Village to Harlem, women civic activists set their sights on corrupt judges, policemen, and politicians. Aligned with Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, they fought to reshape courts and prisons, to rehabilitate sex workers and to punish pimps, to modernize city government and to sustain progressive agendas. Their vision, practical ideas, and sophisticated political skills continue to resonate in our own time.

Elisabeth Israels Perry is professor emeritus of history and women's and gender studies at Saint Louis University. She has published extensively on American women's history, and is the author of Belle Moskowitz: Feminine Politics and the Exercise of Power in the Age of Alfred E. Smith, a biography of her grandmother and one of the original "Women of the La Guardia Administration."

Elisabeth Israels Perry explodes traditional assumptions that once they had the vote, American women settled passively into voting as their husbands and fathers had done. Her formidable research and vivid prose reveal that in the nation's largest city, from Greenwich Village to Harlem, women civic activists set their sights on corrupt judges, policemen, and politicians. Aligned with Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, they fought to reshape courts and prisons, to rehabilitate sex workers and to punish pimps, to modernize city government and to sustain progressive agendas. Their vision, practical ideas, and sophisticated political skills continue to resonate in our own time.