Since the rise of the Religious Right in the 1980s, analysis of American fundamentalism has neglected a large body of literature about gender roles and social conventions. In 1990, Betty A. DeBerg's groundbreaking study filled that important gap, analyzing the roots and character of fundamentalism in light of rapid changes and severe disruptions in gender-role ideology and actual social behavior in America between 1880 and 1930. Since then, Ungodly Women: Gender and the First Wave of American Fundamentalism has remained the standard source on the subject. Unlike other interpreters, DeBerg convincingly argues that these concerns were central to American fundamentalism.
