This paper explains that material feminists attributed women's oppression to their physical and spatial environments, namely
that of the home and kitchen. The author points out that, while the material feminists' beliefs concerning the way women's work should be organized differed from that of the middle class women who practiced
domesticity, it was the reform activities the domestic women engaged that paved the way for the more vocal, extreme form of female activism in which the material feminists were involved. The paper relates that many of the
middle-class women who adhered to the ideology of domesticity also engaged in reform activities, utilizing the nurturing aspects of their character to help the population and were active members of church groups.