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Women suffrage
Women suffrage
Introduction and thesis about women's suffrage in the United States
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It was January 11, 1885 and in Moorestown, New Jersey what I would call a rook in the chess game of women’s suffrage, was born. It’s hard to believe that such an overwhelming infatuation in equality could be so deeply immersed in a woman only twenty-seven years of age. However, when you know that this person is none other than Alice Paul, believing gets easier. It was the defiance caged up inside this fire-cracker of a woman that led her steadily through the great battle of woman's suffrage. Growing up in a Quaker home with supportive parents encouraged Paul from an early age to challenge others’ beliefs when they differed from her own. An emphasis was also placed on acting with integrity. Paul never hesitated to do so and she followed her heart with a blind eye, wherever it would lead her. These were the building blocks that shaped a woman who shaped women’s suffrage. Paul traveled to England on a political apprenticeship. It was in England where she befriended a group of radicals, and there couldn’t have been a better time or place for such a friendship to take place. England was currently absorbed in its own battle with women’s suffrage, and this set off a spark in Paul that grew to ignite a fire when she vowed to herself to bring confrontational feminism to the United States. If anything were to set Paul aside from her fellow suffragists, it would be her strategies. The sheer audacity behind them! It’s as if her PhD. in Sociology gave her a key into the minds of her adversaries that allowed her to manipulate the movement through their unavoidable weaknesses. For instance, it is one thing to stage a picket, but Paul can twist and engineer one to substantially emphasize its effect. The day... ... middle of paper ... ...ter place. Her legacy may present this as a daunting task, but it really isn't so. Our morals and values can't speak for themselves, and it is through us that they must be passed on and weaved through humanity. Contradicting a racial slur or even smiling at a stranger are simple ways we can address this obligation. Opportunities are everywhere; I know I'll take the next one. Works Cited Schnell, J. Christopher. "Paul, Alice (1885-1977)." DISCovering U.S. History. Online ed. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Student Resource Center - Junior. Gale. Poudre High School. 18 Feb. 2011 . Keenan, Sheila. Scholastic Encyclopedia of Women in the United States. New York: Scholastic Reference, 2002. Print.
Volume III: P-Z. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971. Print. The. James, Edward, Janet James, and Paul Boyer. Notable American Women, 1607-1950.
Eibling, Harold H., et al., eds. History of Our United States. 2nd edition. River Forest, Ill: Laidlaw Brothers, 1968.
In anaylsing the validity of this statement, “We are all benefiting from the great feminists who struggled and suffered and worked to give us everything women now enjoy.” it can be concluded that Stanton was a women who was able to reinvent and influence women’s rights all over the world. She was a feminist who encountered many struggles, leading and influencing thousands of women throughout her career. To this day her work is still remembered and recognised by all, as the right to vote becomes increasingly important in today’s world.
Perhaps the most crucial reformists of the time period were those battling to obtain their God-given rights. Many lower class workers, such as African Americans, women, and immigrants, sought after the opportunity to vote, work it certain facilities, and be accepted in society as a whole. An engraving by Patrick Reason depicts an African American female in chains; with the inscription ‘Am I not a Woman and a Sister?’(Doc C) The woman shown is crying out, begging to be heard and listened to. Many males of the time period did not take female reformists seriously, or listen to them at all. On August 2nd, 1848, through the Seneca Falls Declaration, Elizabeth Cady Stanton prote...
Walens, Susann. A. United States History Since 1877. Western Connecticut State University, Danbury, CT. September 2007.
Susan B. Anthony was an equal rights activist and one of the founders of feminism. She was fined $100 for voting illegally in the 1872 election. She was outraged by this, and traveled the country speaking on women’s suffrage and equal rights. Though women weren’t given the right to vote until 14 years following her death, she delivered a powerful speech, now known as “Women’s Right to Suffrage” to express her anger with the lack of rights in this country. She argues that “we that people” isn’t just inclusive to white men, and that both men and women should be given equal opportunity. Today, Ms. Anthony’s words still echo into the hearts and minds of fourth wave feminists, like myself, and inspire them to continue fighting against inequality
As an ambitious, disciplined, and devoted woman, Susan B. Anthony was a prominent women’s right activist who established the women’s suffrage movement in the nineteenth century and advocated equal rights for all women and men throughout her life. Born and raised in a Quaker family that considered women equal to men, Susan B. Anthony developed a sense of impartiality and wanted to ignite equality throughout all men and women. After teaching for fifteen years, Anthony became active in the temperance movement and the anti-slavery movement. However, since she was a woman, her right to speak publicly was denied which is one of the most significant concepts that encouraged her to become an effective woman’s suffrage leader. With the help of her
During the nineteenth century, America went through a number of social, economic and political changes. Revolutions in manufacturing and commerce led to substantial economic growth. Several cultural movements reformed American society. Mary Paul, once just a normal girl from Vermont, led a life that was shaped by the changes of the 1800's. The information gathered from Mary Paul's letters to her father make it clear that Mary's life experiences turned her into anything but an average woman. However, in the scope of the economic and cultural reforms of the nineteenth century, Mary Paul represents the average American.
...be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. and even though she wasn't there to see it she was the one that led the storm of change to each state watering the tree of equality.
Most of the women involved with women’s rights were Quakers, so the same principles and ideas from the religion carried over to the movement. The ideas of love, harmony, empathy, and equality of all sexes and colors were strong in the feminist movement and had their root in the Society of Friends. Since the Quakers were generally the only ones in early America to believe in equality of the sexes, there was a struggle between the society and the outside world that came to light when the women’s rights movement began. Quakers were the driving force of the movement, with 40% of women involved being a Quaker. They did not see why the rest of the world ignored women and hoped that they would see the same equality they were raised with. This is why four out of the five of the women who created the Seneca Falls convention were Quakers: they had been living with equality their whole lives and wanted the rest of the world to have it
Women in public leadership roles and positions were not very common; they were even less recognized as figures of political revolt. Rosa Parks is a vivid example of a woman who is generally recalled as a quiet and tired woman who refused to give up her seat in protests of segregation when she was actually “an agent” (Olson, 2001) for political activism. Interestingly, she is not historically depicted as a revolutionary for social justice, but as a deferential woman who served as a catalyst for a bus boycott organized by men. Hamer defied such a demure perception of herself through her speeches and through her actions. She challenged, albeit unwittingly, other women, particularly white women to recognize their “common bond” with her: “In the past, I don’t care how poor this white woman was, in the South, she still felt like she was more than us…But coming to the realization of the thing, her freedom is shackled in chains to mine, and she realized for the first time that she is not free until I am free,” (Marable & Mullings, 2009). Like King, and the other major prominent civil rights leaders of the time, Hamer was profoundly committed to the idea that the struggle to achieve equity and justice for one’s race and one’s humanity was a moral and spiritual commitment. She was fighting for something much bigger than herself; she was fighting for all people who were trapped by a system from which there had never been a clear
Angelina Grimke and Sojourner Truth were both prominent American civil rights activists of the 19th century who focused on the abolition of slavery and women’s rights issues, respectively. While both of these women challenged the societal beliefs of the United States at the time regarding these civil rights issues, the rhetorical strategies used by each of these women to not only illustrate their respective arguments but also to raise social awareness of these issues was approached in very different fashions. Angelina Grimke promoted the use of white middle-class women’s positions in the household to try to influence the decision makers, or men, around them. On the other hand, Sojourner Truth, a former slave turned women’s rights activist,
Every woman in the world has heard at least one “you cannot” in her lifetime. Believe it or not there used to be a time when society believed that statement and women were confined to cooking, cleaning, or housekeeping. Today, there are many amazing women pursuing their dreams, such as Hillary Clinton, a very famous politician, and Sally Ride, the first American woman in space. The women back in the 1840’s are the reason women today have this freedom, the women who changed feminism forever. The women’s suffrage movement was a long-standing battle for equality between men and women that should have been instituted from the start of our country due to women’s increasing political intelligence and work ethic. This became instituted thanks to Alice Paul and Susan B. Anthony whose work was primarily in the 1880’s. Alice Paul and Susan B. Anthony are still some of the most influential women in history because of their bravery and mental strength in the women’s suffrage movement.
Hewitt, Nancy. "Beyond the Search for Sisterhood: American Women's History in the 1980's."Social History. Vol. 10: No. 3 (1985): 299-321
History of Women in the United States. 9 November 2005. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia Online. 15 November 2005 .