Her Own Hero: The Origins of the Women's Self-Defense Movement

This innovative history reveals the untold story of the women's self-defense movement and its origins in the Progressive Era.

In the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, women began taking up boxing and jiu-jitsu in record numbers. The new trend was both a reflection of and a response to the broader cultural issues of the time, including the women's rights movement and the campaign for the vote. While some of these women simply wanted to protect themselves from strangers on the st...