From Movement to Mainstream

Abstract

This is a case study of Transition House in Cambridge, MA, a pioneering feminist agency founded in 1976. Transition House has survived and is, today, a thriving agency. Based on interviews with and papers collected from those involved in founding and running it, as well as a few guests/clients, I argue that Transition House’s evolution was impelled by three major forces shared with other early domestic violence agencies: changes in the culture due in part to successes of the battered women’s movement in the early years, changes in the larger political–economic context due to national policies and economic trends, which make getting out of poverty in 2017 more difficult than it was in the 1970s, and learning from survivors and from evolving research on domestic violence. In 1976, the immediate focus was on women “battered” by their partners, and the agency was strongly identified with the women’s movement. In 2017, the focus is on women who are battered by economic and social conditions as much as by their partners, and the agency is seen as a partner with the city and with other nonprofit agencies.