That was the reason a lot of women join those orgs, but a lot of the women leading the Progressive movement had very eugenicist views. All of it is put through this lens of dealing with social ills by "fixing" the uncivilized. So they rope in women who want to stop abuse from happening, into supporting efforts that destroy labor organizing, and essentially make young women wards of these Puritanical nativists.
A lot of this came from wellborn white women who earnestly wanted to vote and develop women's spheres of politics and social development, but whose views are inextricable from eugenics. So good social reforms are part of this larger system of "uplifting" lesser people.
https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1541&context=lcp
That was the reason a lot of women join those orgs, but a lot of the women leading the Progressive movement had very eugenicist views. All of it is put through this lens of dealing with social ills by "fixing" the uncivilized. So they rope in women who want to stop abuse from happening, into supporting efforts that destroy labor organizing, and essentially make young women wards of these Puritanical nativists.
Like Settlement Houses which Protestants in the UK and US created often out of a genuine desire to see immigrant women not go into prostitution or starving on the streets in unhygienic conditions, just as implicitly saw their purpose as a sacred duty to maintain "social hygiene" and assimilate or isolate undesirables. This is the same trend that led to birthcontrol in the US being popularized by some in order to curtail minority birthrates.
A lot of this came from wellborn white women who earnestly wanted to vote and develop women's spheres of politics and social development, but whose views are inextricable from eugenics. So good social reforms are part of this larger system of "uplifting" lesser people. https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1541&context=lcp