<p>Junior Leagues of America, National Council of Jewish Women, Boys' dubs, Girl Scouts, Campfire Girls, YWCA. Organizations like Red Cross developed earlier, before the Civil War; self-help groups among Jews and other immigrants reached a peak in the 1890s.</p>

<p>Nathan E. Cohen, ed., The Citizen Volunteer (New York: Harper &amp; Row, 1960), contains chapters on women volunteers as well as on the history of voluntarism.</p>

<p>William L. O'Neill, Everyone Was Brave: The Rise and Fall of Feminism in America (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1969).</p>

<p>There are no data on patterns of women's voluntarism among different religious and ethnic groups, although great variation is known to exist. More than one million Jewish women belong to women's divisions and all-female groups, for example. See my »Jewish Women's Groups—Separate—But Equal?« American Jewish Congress Bi-Weekly, February 1970.</p>

<p>In spite of public appeals, studies show that most women volunteer because of neighborhood styles or pressure from friends and relatives who are also volunteers.</p>

<p>H. Wolozin of the University of Massachusetts, quoted by Helen B. Schaffer, »Voluntary Action: People and Programs« Editorial Research Reports, 1969.</p>

<p>To accommodate the special nature of voluntarism, one is not hired; recruitment or placement distinguishes this pseudowork. Since public relations skills and the history of voluntarism underlie this facet of social work, special courses are offered. Two universities have recently established centers devoted to the study and management of volunteers. The Nixon administration has established a data bank on voluntary projects under the National Center for Voluntary Action.</p>

<p>Of 2,061 volunteers in New York City in 1970, 77 per cent were women, of whom 55 per cent were single and 22 per cent were married (a shift that bears watching). This is typical of large urban-center voluntarism, even where others were the target population. Reported in the June 1970 News of the Volunteer Coordinating Council of New York City.</p>

<p>Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Women and Economics (Boston: Small, Maynard &amp; Co., 1898).</p>

<p>The U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Manpower Research, in a 1965 survey of U.S. volunteers (excluding political, religious, and fraternal organizations, so the actual figure is considerably larger), found that six of every ten American volunteers were women; in all, twenty-two million women served as volunteers. Three-quarters of the women were married; half were between twenty-five and forty-four; three-quarters served in youth and education programs. This study is reported in a U.S. government publication, American Volunteer, April 1969.</p>