Making Waves: Grassroots Feminism in Duluth and Superior [Paperback]

Beginning in the late 1970s, a wave of feminist organizing broke on the shores of the Twin Ports of Duluth, Minnesota, and Superior, Wisconsin. Its impact has transformed the lives of women and men in these communities and far beyond. Beginning with one of the first rape crisis programs and battered womens shelters in the nation, pioneering organizations sprang up all over Duluth and Superior to provide services and advocacy, raise awareness, and effect change on a wide range of womens issues.Making Waves presents the histories of ten innovative grassroots feminist organizations to paint an overall picture of feminist activism in the Twin Ports over the last forty years. Through the voices of the women who formed and developed them, the book tells how these organizations began, their struggles and their triumphs, their lessons and their legacies. Author Elizabeth Ann Bartlett shows that a combination of factorsthe small-town community, the presence of key movers and shakers, the influence of the Anishinaabe, the proximity to Lake Superior and the northern wilderness, and a heritage of progressive organizingall contributed to the rise and flourishing of these prominent feminist organizations in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin.A vital history of the groups and individuals who put Duluth and Superior at the forefront of pioneering and innovative feminist organizing.Advance Praise:

This book is simply remarkable. Dr. Bartletts accomplished research provides true evidence of what women have intuitively known for centuries: When united around a call to action and a sense of place, we create powerful change. And our communities are so much better because of it.
Emily Larson, Duluth Mayor

Making Waves portrays with intimate detail an astonishing array of grassroots feminist organizations in communities surrounding the Duluth Harbor at the tip of Lake Superior. . . . Beth Bartletts fine-grained study shows us that we are only beginning to understanló´