Helen Barrett Montgomery - Public Career

Public Career

Helen Barrett Montgomery's life work may be described under four headings: church, social reforms to benefit women, Bible translation, and missions. She has been described by the scholar Kendal Mobley as a "domestic feminist":

"While she supported women's suffrage and believed women had rights as citizens to share political power, she emphasized the value to society of women's moral influence. She did not question the validity of the idea of separate spheres for men and women. Instead, she argued that the limits of woman's sphere were too narrow, and in her theory and practice she conceptualized a woman's sphere that was in fact limitless. Like many other Progressives, she believed that the moral influence of True Womanhood and the values of the Victorian home ought to be extended throughout the state and the society."