Redeemer, Reformer, Rebel

The first biography of one of Virginia’s greatest social reformers

When Dr. Kate Waller Barrett died in 1925, the governor of Virginia ordered flags to be flown at half-staff, the first time in its three-century history that the commonwealth paid such a tribute to a woman. This is the first biography of Barrett, the ardent and remarkably successful Progressive Era social reformer. Barrett’s life spanned a time of seismic change in the nation and in women’s lives, particularly Southern women, as they forged new identities in the changing environment of the post–Civil War years and the Progressive Era.

Barrett rebelled against the restrictions imposed on Southern women and established her reputation as a strong-willed advocate for what many people at the time considered to be society’s “outcasts”: unwed mothers and prostitutes. She successfully combined evangelism with a maternalistic strategy that brought a uniquely feminine approach to bear on social issues affecting women and children, and her years of activism propelled her onto the national stage and earned her global recognition. President Theodore Roosevelt called her “one of the most useful women in the United States.” But to the women of Richmond’s Butchertown slums, she was known simply as “Mother Barrett.”