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Feminist gains: The Century and women

In the late 1980s, Barbara Brown Zikmund lamented the failure of churches prior to the 1960s to understand and help working women, women who had first moved into the workplace during World War II. The indices of the Century during the ’40s and ’50s demonstrate how little attention mainline religion gave to women’s issues during those years. A lone mention of “women in ministry” appeared in 1947, and the topic did not resurface for over a decade. A reference to “women in churches” appeared in 1941 and another in 1948, with multiple references coming in 1949.