Feminists never wanted women to “have it all.” The second-wave feminists of the 1960s and 70s published consciousness-raising pamphlets and lobbied for equal rights legislation—but their practical gains took care of only one part of “work-life balance.” For them, a new breed of overburdened bionic woman who could “bring home the bacon [and] fry it up in pan” was never the evolutionary ideal. If they’d had their way, the world would have changed to spare mothers from double-duty.

In her new book Feminism’s Forgotten Fight, Fordham University historian Kirsten Swinth uncovers the all-but-lost history of the women’s movement’s advocacy for mothers. The success of women’s largely economically driven progress in the workplace since the 1970s has consistently overshadowed the reality of mothers’ unequal burden. But motherhood was central to the movement’s founding argument, which led with a call for change that’s yet to be adequately answered: The United States, for instance, remains the only industrialized nation not yet mandating some form of paid leave for new mothers.