Women in the US, 1850-1919

I. The Condition of Women in the 19th CenturyA. Separate Spheres-- Myth v. FactB. Women and the Law

II. Women’s Political CultureA. Education and ReligionB. Anti-slaveryC. TemperanceD. Consent, Marriage, and DivorceE. LaborF. Racial Justice

III. The Women’s Rights MovementA. LeadersB. MethodsC. ReactionsD. Results

“Separate Spheres” Ideology

Male• Public Sphere• Wage labor

– Physical, dangerous

• Government– Parties, Army

• Conflict– State of Nature

Female• Private Sphere• Housework

– Cooking, cleaning

• Family– Childbirth,

rearing

• Love– Nurture

The Myth of “Separate Spheres”

• Poorer women work for wages– In 1850, ten percent of women

worked for wages– By 1900, 5M (13.4%) work for wages

• Middle class women join churches and reform organizations– Assert authority over education,

health, and welfare by using stereotypes about women’s nature.

Women and the Law

• Coverture (civil death)

• Cannot enter

professions

• Limited Access to

Divorce

• Cannot vote to change

lawsMyra Bradwell

Education and Religion

Oberlin grads, 1855

New York’s

“Burned-over District”

Anti-slavery

• Women are the stalwarts of the abolitionist crusade.

Burning of PA Hall, 1838

Temperance

Sex and Marriage

• Consent – Protect girls against

seduction, rape, premature marriage, & prostitution

• Birthrate– Falls 40% between 1800-

1900• Marriage

– Married women’s property acts

• Divorce– Make habitual drunkenness

and cruelty grounds for suit

Labor

• Child labor• Women’s hours and wages• Factory Inspection

Teen girls in Chicago sweatshop, 1903.

Racial Justice

• Anti-lynching– A Red Record

(1895)

• Suffrage– Chicago's Alpha

Suffrage Club

Ida B. Wells-Barnett

Citizenship• Female

abolitionists want the 15th Amendment to guarantee their right to vote as well

• Male reformers see this as politically impractical

• Some black leaders support– Frederick Douglass

Leaders

Susan B. Anthony Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Moral Suasion

Women Praying outside MN Saloon, 1870s

Protest & Lobbying

• American Equal Rights Association • National Woman Suffrage Association • American Woman Suffrage Association • National American Woman Suffrage Association • Equality League of Self-Supporting Women• Women's Political Union • Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage• Woman's Party

Reaction

Opposing Arguments

• Unnatural• Women don’t want• Women control

men• Republican

Motherhood• Racial analogy

Results