Melissa--

Re: "It's hard to guess how Women's Ideas spread and were adapted to suit each group because there just wasn't much attention paid to how women spread gender-specific communication..."

In my great grandmother's letters, written from her husband's logging camp in the hills of Eastern Washington State in the Nineteen-teens, she mentions a number of "lady's" magazines or journals, most of them related to various Social Reform movements. She laments her isolation from the religious and intellectual discussions of women in town. She then begs her sister-in-law to please gather up various periodicals from among her circle of acquaintances and send them along after they've been read.

I believe these periodicals--many of them published by various church-related organizations--played a major role in the spread of ideas among women. Traveling lecturers were also important, and these intellectual celebrities were much anticipated and much discussed by those who went to hear them or read their published speeches and essays.

--Cuilionn