Winnifred Harper Cooley

Cooley was a prolific writer.^[1] Her best known work is The New Womanhood (1904). In The New Womanhood, Cooley lists the achievements of the New Woman as 1- education (lower, higher, professional), 2- employment (industrial, commercial), and 3- recognition (legal and civil).^[3]

In "The Younger Suffragists" (1913), Cooley distinguishes herself and the "younger feminists" from the "older suffragists" and their idea that gaining the ballot will change the world for women.^[4] Although the term would become widespread in the 1960s and 1970s, only a small group of women called themselves feminists in the early 20th century.^[5][6] Cooley was among this first generation of self-proclaimed feminists. According to Cooley, "A feminist is always a suffragist, but a suffragist is not always a feminist."^[6] Cooley saw the suffragists as more conservative than the broader outlooked feminists.^[6] For feminists, suffrage was a path to complete social revolution.^[4]

Beginning in 1923, Cooley hosted a biweekly dinner forum facetiously called "The Morons" which drew as many as 300 attendees.^[2]

Wikiquote has quotations related to Winnifred Harper Cooley.

• Online text of The New Womanhood
• The New Womanhood Online text at Internet Archive