| Turn of the Century Women's Roles (1837-1933) |
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Sections:- Women's Suffrage Map
- Susan B. Anthony: Suffragette
- The Seneca Falls Declaration (1848)
- Attitudes on Enfranchisement
- Property Rights
- Working Restrictions
- The 19th Amendment
- Politicians
- Female Professionals
- Female Medical Education
- Women's Education
- Agnes Nestor: Working Her Fingers to the Bone (1898)
- 19th Century Reform
- Domestic Expectations
- Domestic Advancements
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| Historical Context
Attached Document
This map indicates which states allowed women to vote and to what degree prior to and after the passage of the 19th Amendment.
Questions to consider
1)Do you see an overall pattern as to which states / regions gave women to right to vote early on?
2)Why might this be the case in these areas?
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| Historical Context
After meeting Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony dedicated herself to winning full rights for women. Teamed with Stanton, she gained her first success with the passage of New York State's Married Women's Property Act (1860). An ardent abolitionist, she opposed the male-only Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. During 1868–70 she was publisher of Revolution, a women's suffrage paper, and with Stanton she founded the National Woman Suffrage Association (1869). In the election of 1872 she cast a ballot and was arrested and fined, and in 1905 she personally visited President Theodore Roosevelt to urge his support for women's suffrage. The ridicule that had greeted her in her first decades was replaced by respect, and she became internationally known as the symbol of the women's rights movement.
Attached Documents
Included in this section are an early picture of Anthony.
The transcript of the sentencing of Susan B Anthony following her trial, where she was convicted of casting a ballot illegally in the state of New York, follows the photograph.
There is also a transcript of a speech by Anthony in favor of Women's Suffrage following her indictment, in which she expresses her reasoning for casting her ballot in the original election, and why women should be able to vote from this point forward.
Lastly, the original image of the letter written by Anthony to Congress petitioning for Women's Suffrage is located below.
Questions to consider
1)What does Anthony say about her “crime” of voting?
2)What does she argue is the relationship between the government and an individual’s rights?
3)What arguments does she make about the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution?
4)What sort of action has Anthony and her supporters taken to grant women voting rights? What methods had they tried in the past?
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The Seneca Falls Declaration of 1848 outlined goals the women's rights movement of the mid-19th century. As can be seen in the opening passages, the document was modeled after the Declaration of Independence.
Attached Document
Included here is the text of the Seneca Falls Declaration of 1898.
Questions to consider
1)Why would they have chosen the Declaration of Independence as a model?
2)What do the writers of this document want, or want to express?
3)How is the argument of “absolute tyranny over” women supported?
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| Historical Context
There were, obviously, proponents on both sides of the suffrage issue and both expressed their opinions ferociously in the media.
The presentation supporting the constitutional suffrage amendment, then presented as the 16th, was presented during the Congressional consideration of the subject and presents a compelling argument for its passage.
Attached Documents
This New York Times article highlights the details on the passage of the 19th amendment and then also addresses the half century plight of the suffragists.
The cartoon provided below displays the desire for women's suffrage.
The Supreme Court decreed, in the first case of its kind, Minor v. Happersett (1874) that the state of Missouri had been within its constitutional rights in denying a woman applicant, Virginia Minor, the right to vote.
This cartoon illustrates the negative perception of female suffrage that opponents to the bill expressed in the media. It shows that the changes in the status quo would upset the proper sphere of female influence and tries to prove that men would be subjugated to that arena in return. |
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| Historical Context
Before married women's property acts were passed, upon marriage a woman lost any right to control property that was hers prior to the marriage, nor did she have rights to acquire any property during marriage. A married woman could not make contracts, keep or control her own wages or any rents, transfer property, sell property or bring any lawsuit. In 1848, the New York Married Women's Property Act was passed giving women more comprehensive rights to control property. The law was used as a model for similar laws in many other states, such as New Jersey. An image of the New Jersey Property Act appears below.
In 1830, a very wealthy Chickasaw woman named Betsy Love, married John Allen, a man who had acquired substantial debts. Upon their marriage, his creditors sued her for payment of his debts, which they could do under the current State property laws. However, tribal law dictated that a man and his wife held separate property; the judge agreed that since the Allen's were married in a Chickasaw ceremony that Chickasaw tradition governed their marriage and her property was safe from her husband's creditors.
Attached Documents
Passed in 1848, New York's Married Women's Property Act was used by other states as a model. The text of the law is included in this section.
Questions to Consider
1. How do you think Property Rights equity affected the lives of ordinary women?
2. Why do you think property rights were a major concern for women in the 19th century? |
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A major facet of the Progressive movement’s agenda was to ameliorate the worst aspects of industrialization; including environmental degradation, abuse of workers, exploitation of consumers, and corruption of the political process. Starting in the state legislatures, reformers passed a variety of statutes, including factory safety laws, workmen's compensation, minimum wages and maximum hours. However, conservatives were able to block some of these programs in the courts, where they appealed to a judiciary imbued with the notions that private property was sacrosanct and that legislatures should not be able to tell people how to use their property.
In 1905, the case of Lochner v New York ruled that limiting the hours of bakery workers, regardless of sex, to a ten-hour day was unconstitutional, because such a measure bore no relation to the worker's health or safety. When the state of Oregon established a ten-hour workday for women in laundries and factories, business owners attacked it on the grounds that, like the New York law, it bore no relation to the women's health or safety. Justice Brewer upheld the law, claiming that it did relate to women's health and safety, in an unprecedented brief that established that women were, legally, different from men.
Attached Documents
The transcript of the failed challenge of the state law, Muller v. Oregon, is included below.
A transcript of the earlier, successful challenge to state law, Lochner v New York, is included as well.
Question to Consider
1. Do you think it should be the state or federal government's responsibility to safeguard their citizens? If a state does so, should the federal government override their decision?
2. Can you think of another legal reason Justice Brewer could have upheld the Oregon law? What were the inherant differences between bakery and laundry work at the turn of the century? |
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| Historical Context
Although briefly postponed due to the outbreak of WWI, the continued agitation by women determined to obtain voting rights resulted in the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which finally allowed women to represent themselves at the polls.
Attached Documents
The attachments include photographs of a pro-suffrage parade, suffrage protesters targeting Woodrow Wilson because of his reluctance to support the 19th Amendment, and Kentucky Governor, Edwin Morrow, signing the 19th Amendment on its way to ratification.
Questions to Consider
1. Edwin Morrow was the most governor most photographed while signing the 19th Amendment, why do you think this was?
2. Look at the simplicity of the 19th Amendment, how is the wording beneficial to women? |
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| Historical Context
American women have had the right to vote since 1920, but their political roles have been minimal. A notable exception was Jeanette Rankin, a member of the Republican Party who campaigned for universal suffrage, prohibition, child welfare reform, an end to child labor and staying out of the First World War, and became the first woman to be elected to the House of Representatives. One of her first actions was to introduce a bill that would have allowed women citizenship independent of their husbands, whereas women lost most of their liberties in deference to their husbands after marriage.
Hattie Caraway of Arkansas was first appointed to the Senate in 1932 to fill the vacancy caused by the death of her husband, Thaddeus H. Caraway. In 1933, she became the first woman elected to the United States Senate. She was the first woman to chair a Senate Committee and the first woman to take up the gavel on the Senate floor as the presiding officer.
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| Historical Context
Doctors were not the only female professionals who encountered resistance. The legal profession was also resistant to admitting women. Myra Bradwell applied for membership in the Illinois state bar in accordance with a state statute that permitted any adult of good character and with sufficient training to be admitted. Because she was a woman, however, the Illinois State Bar denied her admission, noting that the "strife" of the bar would surely destroy femininity. Bradwell appealed the decision to the United States Supreme Court, arguing that her right to practice law was protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.
In another blow for Women's Rights, the Supreme Court disagreed with Bradwell. In an 8-1 ruling, it upheld the decision of the Illinois court, ruling that the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment did not include the right to practice a profession. Justice Bradley's opinion concurring in the Court's judgment is notable for positing that it was the "paramount destiny" of a woman to "fulfill the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. This is the law of the Creator."
Attached Documents
The Bradwell v Illinois decision is included here.
The text of the Fourteenth Amendment, which includes the Privileges and Immunities clause is also included as a reference for understanding the Bradwell case.
Questions to Consider
1. Do you agree with the ruling that freedom of profession is not granted by the privileges and immunities clause? Why or why not? |
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| Historical Context
Beginning in the 19th century the required educational preparation for the practice of medicine increased. This tended to prevent many young women from entering professional medical careers, although they had dominated many areas of medicine, primarily midwifery, prior to this point. Home nursing was considered a proper female occupation, wheras nursing in hospitals was done almost exclusively by men. Specific discrimination against women also began to appear. For example, the American Medical Association, founded in 1846, barred women from membership. They were also barred from attending "men's" medical colleges. Instead, women enrolled in their own such as the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania, which was established in 1850. By the 1910s, however, women were attending many leading medical schools, and in 1915 the American Medical Association began to admit women members. Elizabeth Blackwell was instrumental in breaking back into the field for women. She relentlessly pursued an education and eventually became the first female doctor in the modern American era.
Attached Documents
The attached excerpt is from Elizabeth Blackwell's biography, Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women, which highlights her relentless pursuit of and eventual admission to medical school.
The abstract on the address on the Medical Education of Women covers the introduction of female medical colleges to the profession. The Abstract explains the inaguration of a Women's Medical School and why the men behind the idea pursued such a venture.
Questions to Consider
1. If you had been in Elizabeth Blackwell's position, would you have done the same things? Would you have given up? What would you have tried differently?
2. What reasons does the Address on the Medical Education of Women give for the initiation of Female Medical Schools? Do you think these reasons would work today? |
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| Historical Context
The idea of a proper women's education was a controversial topic. People disagreed on which topics were acceptable, at which age women should begin and end their education, and who should instruct them. At the end of the 18th Century, Mary Wollstonecraft published A Vindication of the Rights of Woman through which she sought to "persuade women to endeavor to acquire strength, both of mind and body, and to convince them that the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are almost synonymous with epithets of weakness."
Attached Documents
The excerpt below highlights Wollstonecraft's opinions on expanding the educational opportunities for women.
Half a century later, William Johnston presented the "Address on Female Education", further asserting that men and women's minds need the same things to be properly developed. That document is also included
Questions to Consider
1. Think of the top five reasons you believe that women's education should not differ from men's? What reasons does Mary Wollstonecraft give for the education of women? What do you think of these answers? Who was her audience? Do you think this affected her rhetoric?
2. What is the basis for Female Education described in the second document? How does it differ from Wollstonecraft? How does it differ from your list? |
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| Historical Context
Beginning in the late 19th century, the rapid increase in the number of women in the work force reflected a significant shift in the role and status of women in American culture. As women become more economically empowered, their methods and scope of organization also became increasingly more apparent and often tied to labor disputes. Such disputes often provided the impetus for organized movements to achieve suffrage with the general understanding that political influence would provide women with greater protection in the work place. Included here is an account of Agnes Nestor, a factory worker, who played a substantial role in the emerging women's labor movement. Nestor’s mother was a textile mill worker and her father was a machinist and a one-time member of the Knights of Labor who became a city alderman in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The family migrated to Chicago during the depression of the 1890s, and the teenage Agnes went to work in a glove factory. The sixty-hour work weeks exhausted her. “I have been so tired all day I could hardly work,” she regularly noted in her diary. This reminiscence by Nestor described how the oppressive conditions of the glove factory pushed her to take a leading role in a successful strike of female glove workers in 1898. Soon she became president of her glove workers local and later a leader of the International Glove Workers Union. She also took a leading role in the Women’s Trade Union League, serving as president of the Chicago branch from 1913 to 1948.
Attached Document
Included here is Nestor's "Working Her Fingers to the Bone."
Questions to consider
1)What did workers in the factory have to pay for themselves?
2)What event made to workers to think of “fighting back”? What action was taken?
3)What was the management’s reaction to this action?
4)What were the women attempting to accomplish? Were they successful?
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The late 19th century was a period of intense social reform movements.
Attached Documents
Attached are two examples of this trend towards social reform. The first document is from a speech by feminist activist Susan B. Anthony who observes that, though women are least likely to succumb to intemperance, they are the worst hurt victims of it. She also states that many women are forced into prostitution out of poverty because they are now allowed any other jobs.
The second attachment is from a writing by author and activist Grace Dodge, who exhorts young ladies to improve themselves and make efficient use of their time.
Questions to Consider
1. Considering what you know of and have read by Susan B Anthony, does a speech on Social Purity seem to align with her platform? Why or Why not?
2. How does the selection by Grace Dodge support Anthony's ideology? Does this sound like feminist rhetoric? Why or Why not, consider the era and audience? |
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| Historical Context
Domesticity used to be a matter of fact; gender was deterministic of one’s occupation. In the Victorian period most women were responsible for clothing, feeding, educating, and sanitizing their families. The women who were not responsible for such things were usually well off and could afford to hire servants and buy expensive appliances to reduce the labor involved in such tasks. Women have often been put into the domestic sphere without voicing their opinion on the matter.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a prolific writer of the era, wrote the Yellow Wallpaper, a story which explains how men perpetrated an ideological prison that subjected and silenced women. This ideology, called the Cult of True Womanhood, legitimized the victimization of women. The Cult of Domesticity and the Cult of Purity were the central tenets of the Cult of True Womanhood. Laboring under the seeming benevolence of the Cult of Domesticity, women were imprisoned in the home or private sphere, a servant tending to the needs of the family. The selection below, describes the experience that many women had during this time period.
The Menus for the Week shows the expanse of domestic work expected of women, and the involvement that was required of them.
Attached Document
Included here is the document "The Yellow Wallpaper."
Questions to Consider
1. What do you think of Gilman's interaction with her husband? How do you think she felt about her role?
2. Looking at the Two Paths poster, do you believe there is only one path to success? Why do you think a diverse knowledge base and various experiences were frightening to the powers that were? |
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Technology has a tremendous role in the way domesticity has changed. There have been great advances in sciences that, through their application, have greatly reduced the amount of time and the extent of labor required for many domestic tasks. By 1937 the first automatic washer was invented and this assuredly diminished the workload. Sewing had been a typical home activity for many centuries but it was not until Isaac Singer invented the first practical sewing machine in 1853 that sewing could become an industry. In 1886, Josephine Cochran proclaims in disgust "If nobody else is going to invent a dishwashing machine, I'll do it myself", which she did.
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