Civil War Women

The Civil War brought a lot of destruction and segregation throughout the near divided United States, but it also brought a feminist movement. Women were filling the jobs that men had left behind to go to war, and they were enjoying their new sense of purpose and independence. When their freedom was taken away with the men returning home, women became restless and started to fight for a movement towards equality in anything from politics to job security. Dozens of women contributed first hand to these revolutions is women perception, but three notable leaders were Margaret Sanger, Mary McLeod Bethune, and Frances Perkins. These women were driving factors for the feminist movement to come after the Civil War; all in their own unique

Of that time, the only women that honestly worked were the women on the farms and in the countryside of America. Most women were to be at home with the duty of children or housekeeping, with little to no political rights or respects. The few women that were given any form of power were those of high-class society, such as high rollers of New England or southern belles of the South. During the Civil War, many of the men of working-class families were being drafted out to fight, except those that were willing to pay the fee to be replaced by another man. Leaving hundreds to thousands of different job types unfulfilled, and leaving many woman home alone, it led to a demand for women to go to work to replace the men who had left. This gave women a sense of independence that for most had never been felt before. After years of oppression, women started to have an impact in the American way of

Mary McLeod Bethune. This woman was an educator, civil rights activist, and political figure throughout her life. Founding over five organizations, her most notable was the National Council of Negro Women, which she founded as an "organization of organizations" that would represent the national and international concerns of black women (NCNW). First, however, she founded her own school named Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School, which was for Negro Girls in Daytona Beach, Florida. After 25 years, the school partnered with an all boy's school by the name of Cookman Institute, and by 1943 it was fully accredited as Bethune-Cookman University. She founded the National Council of Negro Women, which still stands today, in 1935 and served as president until