Kathleen McCarthy here presents the first book-length treatment of the vital role middle- and upper-class women played in the development of American museums in the century after 1830. By promoting undervalued areas of artistic endeavor, from folk art to the avant-garde, such prominent individuals as Isabella Stewart Gardner, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller were able to launch national feminist reform movements, forge extensive nonprofit marketing systems, and "feminize" new occupations.

Kathleen D. McCarthy is associate professor of history and Director of the Center for the Study of Philanthropy at the Graduate School and University Center, CUNY. She is the author of Noblesse Oblige: Charity and Cultural Philanthropy in Chicago, also published by the University of Chicago Press.