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Women's struggles in the late nineteenth century
Essays on women's rights in the 19th century
Oppression of women in the American late 19th century
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Many groups (e.g. industrial workers, farmers, women, good government advocates, journalists, immigrants, socialists) reacted against the concentration of economic and political power in fewer and fewer hands between 1865 and 1990. What did each of these groups want (i.e. agenda)? Looking at the records of presidents Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson, as well as prior presidents, assess how each of these groups succeeded in achieving these aims from 1880 to 1920. Women of the nineteenth century were mostly housewives who like any other family are mostly housewives and nothing more. But some women wanted the liberation of being free and so some stay single and fight for women rights both at home and society itself. During the 1890s, an association called "National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) which is the largest women suffrage around that time. Their leaders were Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony who at the time were at their seventies; leadership was passed down to younger moderate women. There were several issues the NAWSA wanted to address to the nation which includes voting rights, women in labor force, divorce laws, birth control and promoted women's union. National organizations of U.S. farmers, established to advance their social, educational, financial, and political interests. The alliances reflected frustration at the decline in the standard of farm living, a result of steadily lower prices of farm products. Their protest targets included banks, for refusal to reduce interest rates (a great financial burden to farmers, who often met expenses by borrowing against future crop income); railroads, for discriminatory freight rates; and in some areas, local law officials, for laxity in prosecuting cattle thieves. Farmers reacted with anger when prices of their crops decline after civil war. Many farmers argued that the waning prices is not attribute to fluctuations of supply and stipulate but rather monopolistic practices of grain and cotton buyer. Many farmers both black and white realize that only through gathering that their action could they improve rural life. For example, the Interstate Act of 1887, requiring that railroad rate is sensible and just, that rate schedules be made public and that rebates and similar practices be discontinue. The act also created the first federal regulatory agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission, empowers to investigate and take legal action criminal. The Homestead Act of 1862 has been called one the most important pieces of Legislation in the history of the United States.
Women, like black slaves, were treated unequally from the male before the nineteenth century. The role of the women played the part of their description, physically and emotionally weak, which during this time period all women did was took care of their household and husband, and followed their orders. Women were classified as the “weaker sex” or below the standards of men in the early part of the century. Soon after the decades unfolded, women gradually surfaced to breathe the air of freedom and self determination, when they were given specific freedoms such as the opportunity for an education, their voting rights, ownership of property, and being employed.
People always seem to think that woman’s suffrage ended after the nineteenth amendment in 1920. No one ever puts forethought in the aftermath. People had fought for the right to vote for decades beforehand. Susan B. Anthony, a feminist leader starting in 1837. She is considered the mother of women's suffrage and is quoted to this very day: "The day will come when men will recognize woman as his peer, not only at the fireside, but in councils of the nation. Then, and not until then, will there be the perfect comradeship, the ideal union between the sexes that shall result in the highest development of the race." Since that day woman have gained many stances in a vast amount of previously male-dominated areas of society. The fight for women’s rights can be traced back centuries, but feminism in the 1900s really gained popularity, was taken with a serious attitude , and women gained rights in politics, society, and the household.
For much of the 1850’s, lifetime friends Stanton and Anthony moved against the denial of basic economic opportunities to women. Not until the onset of the Civil War did reformers focus their efforts exclusively on the right to vote. As a result, in 1869, two factions of the suffrage movement emerged: The National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), created by Stanton and Anthony, and the American Women Suffrage Association (AWSA) formed by Lucy Stone, a prominent Massachusetts lobbyist for women’s rights (Office of the Historian
The history of The Women’s Suffrage Movement was a long one that first started in 1848. Although it wasn’t until the late 1880s and early 1900s the Women’s Suffrage Movement was close to their goal, although it seemed far from it. By the 1880s the two women’s suffrage groups, The American’s Women Suffrage Association and the Nation Women’s Suffrage Association, were struggling to keep support. During the late at 1880s the two organizations had a great number of women volunteers in middle-class women to extend their reach outside of the home. (568) Taking advantage of this in 1890, the NWSA and the AWSA merged to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) with Elizabeth Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone as officers. In the same year Wyoming became the first state with voting rights for women. (3)
Just imagine having no women’s rights, an over controlling government, someone telling you what to buy and where to buy it, and religious intolerance. Before the Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason, these were the norms. During the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe, educated thinkers like Mary Wollstonecraft, John Locke, Adam Smith, and Voltaire questioned the standards of society. These educated thinkers were called philosophers because they believed in bettering their communities by understanding human nature. The Enlightenment promoted freedom for all people and encouraged them to question the social criteria for women, government, economics, and religion through natural rights and a social contract.
America was supposed to treat everyone equally, although, when the country was founded, women were excluded from the right to vote. It was socially unacceptable. Women were continually taught, from a very young age, that they weren’t mature enough, or mentally capable of making decisions for themselves. This was an injustice to women, and, in order for them to gain justice, they had to fight for their right to vote, a right that should’ve been given to them from the beginning.
The 18th century was a period of slow change for women’s rights in England. The Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution were coterminous at this point in history and brought the new thoughts about women’s rights to England in the late 1700s. In the 1700s women were not as concerned with voting as they were with divorce, adultery, and child custody rights. However, as the population of single women grew throughout the 18th and 19th century the concern for more rights for women became prevalent (Wolbrink, 4 Nov. 2011). By 1851, 43 percent of women in England were single and began to campaign frequency and sometimes forcibly for their rights (Wolbrink, 4 Nov. 2011). Reformer and feminist, Caroline Norton, sums up the feelings of women in both the 1700s and 1800s in her Letter to the Queen,“I do not ask for my rights. I have no rights. I have only wrongs” (CP 148). Rights movements do not begin abruptly, they are often simmering long before an uprising. The 18th century is one such simmering pot. Women were confined at first by their maternal roles but with the growth in knowledge from the Enlightenment women began to raise into the public sphere as activists and reformers.
A women suffrage amendment was brought to the U.S. Congress in 1868 but failed to win support as well as a second amendment in 1878. In 1869 a woman named Elizabeth Cady Stanton got together with Susan B. Anthony, a women’s rights activist, and organized an association called the National Woman Suffrage Association. With this union they would gather with women and fight for women’s suffrage. Later, in 1890 they joined with their competitor the American Women Suffrage Association and became the National American Women Suffrage Association. “NAWSA adopted a moderate approach to female suffrage, eschewing some of the more radical feminism of other women’s rights groups in favor of a national plan designed to gain widespread support” (3). What the association did was they changed their initial tactic towards suffrage for women so that they can be able to obtain support from all over. Having little to no movement on the national front, suffragists took the next step to sate level. That was when Eastern states granted women suffrage, but hadn’t spread to Western states.
In the beginning of the 1840s and into the 1850s, a rather modest women’s reform was in the process. This group was full of visionaries that began a movement that would soon lobby in change and this movement was the groundwork of equality for women and their right to vote within in the United States. Despite their efforts this movement required a length of seventy years to establish this necessarily equality and the right for all women to vote along the side of men. According to the CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS FOUNDATION “After male organizers excluded women from attending an anti-slavery conference, American abolitionists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott decided to call the “First Woman’s Rights Convention.” Held over several days in
The fight for equality between men and women was a major issue. In 1869 Elizabeth Stanton and Susan B. Anthony formed the National Woman Suffrage Association, which craved to achieve voting rights for women by making a Congressional amendment to the Constitution. These women along with many others spent much of their lives campaigning, raising issues to women in areas of education and divorce, holding conventions and meetings, writing numerous letters, and traveling from city to city to gain supporters. At the same time, many were against women having a large role in society, especially men, because they believed a women’s role should be contained in the household taking care of the family; the men wanted to be the providers. Finally, in 1920 the 19th Amendment was admitted to the Constitution allowing w...
In 1848, the American women's rights movement started, during this movement, even though the leaders of the women’s rights advocated for the Reconstruction amendments , such as Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, these amendment did not promote women’s suffrage. In 1869, the writers of the nineteenth amendment, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony worked in the National Woman Suffrage Association while Lucy Stone led the American Woman Suffrage Association’s state-by-state battle for the vote. After that, the two groups united to form the National American Women Suffrage Association. This association aimed to secure voting rights for all American women (American memory, 2010). During World War I, women contributed significantly to the nation's war effort. As a result, many politicians began to realize that women could be an important source of votes, and then the United States Congress supported the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Finally, in 1920, women won the vote throughout the nation (Jone Johnson Lewis, 2008). In simple English, the Nineteenth Amendment states that Constitution cannot deny or abridge the citizens’ voting rights, regardless of the sex.
Women roles have changed drastically in the last 50 to 80 years, women no longer have to completely conform to society’s gender roles and now enjoy the idea of being individuals. Along with the evolution of women roles in society, women presence and acceptance have drastically grown in modern literature. In early literature it was common to see women roles as simply caretakers, wives or as background; women roles and ideas were nearly non-existent and was rather seen than heard. The belief that women were more involved in the raising of children and taking care of the household was a great theme in many early literatures; women did not get much credit for being apart of the frontier and expansion of many of the nations success until much later.
America was built on the ideals of freedom, and as the colonies broke away from England that hope for democratic freedom seemed so much more obtainable. Yet, in the early 19th century women were seen as second-class citizen. Women were expected to keep their interests to their home and their family. Women did not have the opportunities to pursue education, or consider obtaining a professional career. Women did not have the right to own property, keep wages, or even sign a contract. In addition, all women were denied the right to vote. It is because of this we can see that America truly was built on the idea that all “Men” were created equal.
The Women’s Rights Movement was a long and persistent battle fought by many brave female advocates that came before us such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott and Susan B. Anthony. These women selflessly dedicated their lives to the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which forever changed the lives of womankind in America. Prior to their efforts, the United States was still in shambles over the Civil War and spent most of its focus on rebuilding the country and securing rights to African American men. Several activists resented the fact that women were not included in this effort and took matters into their own hands.
A series of educational female pioneers were born and with them many changes emerged. They fought for woman rights, with their efforts, they formed part of an extensive movement of fighters who sought to bring women equal rights to every level possible, such as study, work, own property and vote. In the 1850s important changes came and some rights were given to the woman like the right to own land in a state and also the Female Medical College was founded. At this time woman were not able to vote or to be involved in politics in any form, if so they were rejected and isolated; but a group of woman came to fight and took involvement in politics and fought for the Equal Rights for woman. By 1869 the women's rights movement had become divided into two parties, the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), and the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA), held by Lucy Stone and Antoinette Brown Blackwell. The NWSA, published The Revolution (1868-1872); the AWSA, which appeared from the American Equal Rights Association, published Woman's Journal. At this point, woman were taking important places everywhere, from education, equality all the way to