Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Fall 2021

Abstract

"A WOMAN CAN DO ANYTHING IF SHE PUTS HER MIND ON IT."' This conviction propelled the career choices of Helen Marie Bennett in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the vocational message she communicated. Bennett commenced her wide-ranging life's pursuits in western South Dakota, where she was raised, and brought them to culmination in Chicago, where she became a leader in the emerging field of vocational guidance. She firmly believed that all paths should be open to women and that women had a responsibility to find and follow their own vocation. Bennett's life experiences and interests sparked and shaped her career counseling work and led her to stage the Woman's World's Fair, held annually in Chicago from 1925 to 1928. The all-female enterprise stood as a visual portrayal of the achievements of women in an expanding range of occupations. "We are simply trying to show women what they can do . . . [and] to point the way for the women of tomorrow," she stated.^ The story of Bennett's work to help women name and fulfill their life's callings demonstrates the significant role she played in the vocational guidance movement as it developed in the early twentieth century. Her background, formed through the westward expansionist experience and its legacy of dispossession, would color and complicate her outlook and the imagery she used as she lectured and wrote on vocation. Her message, taken to its full potential, however, evinced a vision of inclusivity and equal opportunities for all.

Publication Title

Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society

Volume

114

Issue

3-4

First Page

55

Last Page

84

Publisher

Illinois State Historical Society

Rights

© 2022 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Posted with permission.

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