Vigorous Reforms: Women Writers and the Politics of Health in the Nineteenth-Century United States

by Jess Libow

Overview

Nineteenth-century America saw profound changes in the ways people viewed their bodies, their health, and their corporeal connection to their environments. Though much of the writing about bodies was produced by men, Vigorous Reforms focuses on the understudied literary history of how women came to understand physicality and its connection to their everyday lives. The introduction of physical education allowed women to conceive their own and others' bodies not as static entities, but as adaptable to their own needs, goals, and labor. Jess Libow also shows the limits of the science of the era—since bodily differences were often understood as biologically determined, theories of health defined womanhood in terms of racialized bodily abilities. For example, settler colonial ideology coded Native women as deteriorating due to their “uncivilized” ways of life, and proponents of slavery insisted that Black women’s inherent strength made them suitable for enslavement.

Drawing on a wide-ranging archive of ideas about exercise, hygiene, and nutrition, Libow argues that women’s writing about health was fundamental to the development of what we now think of as American feminism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781469689036
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	09/09/2025
Pages:	212
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Jess Libow is interim director of the writing program and visiting assistant professor at Haverford College.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Bringing into focus for the first time the extent to which nineteenth-century women writers infused health with political significance, Jess Libow has given the field a beautifully written, eloquent book that exposes the ideological work of physical education, especially as it concerns nation-building and white supremacy. An impressive achievement.”—Sari Edelstein, University of Massachusetts, Boston

“Jess Libow delivers a much-needed analysis of the impact of physical education on women reformers and their interventions in debates about citizenship. A well-written text that I see becoming an important reference for scholars of nineteenth-century American history and culture, women’s history, and history of medicine.”—Sara Crosby, The Ohio State University

Editorial Reviews

Bringing into focus for the first time the extent to which nineteenth-century women writers infused health with political significance, Jess Libow has given the field a beautifully written, eloquent book that exposes the ideological work of physical education, especially as it concerns nation-building and white supremacy. An impressive achievement.”—Sari Edelstein, University of Massachusetts, Boston

“Jess Libow delivers a much-needed analysis of the impact of physical education on women reformers and their interventions in debates about citizenship. A well-written text that I see becoming an important reference for scholars of nineteenth-century American history and culture, women’s history, and history of medicine.”—Sara Crosby, The Ohio State University

From the Publisher