Women and

Public Life

Women during the Progressive Era actively campaigned for reforms in education, children’s welfare, and suffrage.

I. Opportunities for WomenA. Higher Education

1. Limited opportunities at higher education

2. 1833, Oberlin College began admitting women

a. By 1870, about 20% of all college students were women

b. By 1900, more than 1/3 were women

3. Middle or upper class4. Many still denied

professional opportunitiesa. American Medical

Association did not admit women

b. Put talent and skills to work in reform movements

B. Employment opportunities1. Jobs for educated women

expanded in the late 1800sa. Teachers, nurses,

bookkeepers, secretaries, typists, and shop clerks

b. Expanding roles in business, newspapers, and magazines

2. Working class women without a high school education

a. Found jobs in industryb. They took jobs that paid

less than the men’s jobc. Employers assumed women

were single or being supported by their fathers

d. Employers used these reasons to pay them lower wages

3. By late 1800s, opportunities in public life began to change the way many middle-class women viewed their world.

4. Women began to see they had a role in their communities and in society beyond the home.

Questions1. What new opportunities

did women find outside the home in the late 1800s?

2. In terms of wages, what did employers assume about working women?

3. What opportunities did women have for education in the late 1800s?

II. Gaining Political ExperienceA. Children’s Health and

Welfare1. Gained experience

campaigning for children’s rights

2. Worked to end child labor, improve children’s health, and promote education

3. Lillian Walda. Founder of the Henry

Street Settlement b. Believed government

had a responsibility to tend to the well being of children

c. Campaigned to achieve that goal

d. Federal’s Children’s Bureau opened in 1912

B. Prohibition1. Called for a ban on making, selling,

and distributing alcoholic beveragesa. Progressive women gained

experience in the prohibition movement

b. Reformers believed alcohol was often responsible for crime, poverty, and violence towards women

2. Two national organizationsa. Woman’s Christian Temperance

Union (WCTU)b. Anti-Saloon Leaguec. WCTU headed by Frances Willardd. Became a force in the temperance

movement3. Billy Sunday

a. Former baseball player turned evangelist

b. Preached saloons were “the parents of crimes and the mother of sins.”

4. Carry Nationa. Took a hatchet to saloonsb. Urged women across the U.S. to do

the same

5. 18th Amendmenta. Prohibited the manufacture, sale,

and distribution of alcoholic beverages

Questions

1. How did women gain political experience through participation in reforms movements?

2. What areas did women address in their reform movements?

III. Rise of the Women’s Suffrage MovementA. 15th Amendment

1. Suffragist called for the right to vote for women and freed slave after the Civil War

2. Suffragist were not satisfied with the passage of the 15th Amendment

a. It gave the right to vote to African Americans, but not to women

b. It prohibited denying the right to vote “on account of race, color, or previous conditions of servitude.”

B. Women Organize1. Elizabeth Cady Stanton

and Susan B. Anthonya. Formed the National

Women Suffrage Association (NWSA)

b. Campaigned for a constitutional amendment to give women the right to vote.

c. Supported Victoria Woodhull, the first woman presidential candidate, 1872

2. In 1869, Wyoming Territory granted women the right to vote

a. Utah Territory followed a year later

b. 12 states granted women the right to vote before women won the right nationwide.

C. Susan B. Anthony test the law1. 1872, staged a dramatic

protesta. She registered to voteb. On election day, she voted

in Rochester, NYc. 2 weeks later she was

arrested for “knowingly, wrongfully and unlawfully” voting in a congressional election

2. Tried for this crimea. Judge refused to allow her

to testify on her own behalf

b. Fined $100c. She refused to pay

3. 1875, Supreme Court ruled that even though women were citizens, citizenship did not give them the right to vote.

4. The court decided it was up to the states to grant or withhold that right

D. Two Organizations merge

1. 1890, NWSA and American Women Suffrage Association merged

2. National American Women Suffrage Association (NAWSA)

a. Led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony

b. Women finally win the right to vote in 1920

Questions1. Why was Susan B.

Anthony arrested?2. Why do you think the

Supreme Court ruled that the right to vote should be left to individual states?

3. Why was it beneficial to form the NAWSA?

4. What effect did the passage of the 15th Amendment have on suffragists?

5. Why did many women choose to join the temperance movement?