In the nineteenth century, in American society women were viewed as the safeguard of the home. Limited to the domestic sphere, women were considered to be dependent on men, emotional, with limited knowledge tending to deal with petty problems such as marriage and socialising. Their job was to look after the home and bear children. Men on the other hand, were citizen producers, family providers, rational, and were the owners of property. However throughout the 20th century this view was challenge by several significant forces, social, economic and most significantly political, which overtime has led to an immense change in women’s roles in society. A trend of women moving out of the domestic sphere has meant that women’s roles have been defined by things other than ‘domestic drudgery’. Between 1900 and the 1950’s women’s rights changes. This means that over all there was A primary historical force in influencing the changing roles of women was progressivism which had far reaching political and social effects on the lives of American women. The Progressive Era, 1900-1920, was a time of change; an explosive growth in urbanisation and industrialisation. By 1920 the American urban population was over 50% with millions working in factories where they faced long hours, low pay and dangerous working conditions. Meanwhile the urban middle class expanded rapidly, posing opportunity for education and work for women. In 1920, 8 million women were working for wages. For white women, jobs expanded; 25% of women were office workers or typewriters and just 15% worked in domestic services. .” It was these privileged middle class women that looked to correct the ‘evils’ of rapid industrial expansion seeing the harsh conditions of women and childr... ... middle of paper ... ...ments of the latter half of the century. This is evident in the leadership of Eleanor Roosevelt, an American politician, diplomat, and activist whom took as strong stance on civil rights. Hence, women’s roles and interests were changing from exclusively domestic affairs to challenging social injustices as the moral guardians of not just the home but of wider society. Although this de jure change did not affect an immediate general change in society’s expectations of the roles of women, the activism and changes of the progressive era did lead to some barriers being broken down, it became more acceptable for women to work, and the rise of the ‘ideal woman’ - more political, sporty and looking for equality. Thus further supporting the argument that this was the primary force in challenging the traditional roles of women in the first half of the twentieth century.
Click here to unlock this and over one million essays
Show MoreDye drew together the essays of esteemed scholars, such as Ellen Carol DuBois, Barbara Sicherman, and Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, to shed light on the intersectionality between race, gender, and social class at the turn of the 20th Century. While many believe that it was a period of widespread activism and reform, these scholars support the idea that the Progressive Era was more of a conservative than liberal movement, in that it failed to challenge stereotypes about the female’s role in society and created a limited public sphere for women. While the women’s suffrage movement provided more opportunities for white middle-class women, it failed to lessen, or even worsened, the marginalization of immigrant and minority women. Many white-middle class women sympathized with European and Jewish immigrants and were willing to overlook socioeconomic class, but few supported the cause of colored women for labor and education
In the 1900’s women were thought of as if there only respectable job was that, at home cooking, cleaning and looking after the welfare of the family. It was unthinkable that they should be allowed to vote and work as l...
Women faced multiple challenges to establish themselves as equals to men throughout history however, this would have never been possible if not for social progress movements to eliminate gender barriers. Consider the statements of “that is woman’s work” and “that is man’s work”. First, imagine the year is 1920; what vision instantly comes to your mind in what was woman’s work and what was man’s work? Now, fast forward to current day; what instantly comes to mind in consideration of what is woman’s and man’s work? The comparison of the differences of 1920 and 2014 is night and day. Crystal Eastman, a socialist feminist, observed that the 19th Amendment was an important first step but that what women really wanted was freedom and equality. She was campaigning for the equivalence of women in social, political, cultural, and economic status. In the essay titled "Now We Can Begin," she laid out a plan toward this goal that is still relevant today and shared her vision of life that she wanted for herself and women across the nation. (Eastman)
As many women took on a domestic role during this era, by the turn of the century women were certainly not strangers to the work force. As the developing American nation altered the lives of its citizens, both men and women found themselves struggling economically and migrated into cities to find work in the emerging industrialized labor movement . Ho...
Women’s role in society changed quite a bit during WWI and throughout the 1920s. During the 1910s women were very short or liberty and equality, life was like an endless rulebook. Women were expected to behave modestly and wear long dresses. Long hair was obligatory, however it always had to be up. It was unacceptable for them to smoke and they were expected to always be accompanied by an older woman or a married woman when outing. Women were usually employed with jobs that were usually associated with their genders, such as servants, seamstresses, secretaries and nursing. However during the war, women started becoming employed in different types of jobs such as factory work, replacing the men who had gone to fight in the war in Europe. In the late 1910s The National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) had been fighting for decades to get the vote for women. As women had contributed so much to the war effort, it was difficult to refuse their demands for political equality. As a result, the Nineteenth Amendment to the constitution became law in 19...
Even though women were discriminated throughout society in the 1920’s, they still fought for their rights as women that deserved an important role within our society. This change in women’s attitude influenced women across the world to value themselves and their importance. Women in the 1920’s changed the 20th century, and they are still changing society as we know it in our generation and will keep doing so for generations to
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.
In today’s times, women are more equal to men than they ever have been, even though differences like the wage gap exist. However, the rights of women have come a long way since even as little as a hundred years ago. How is this possible? Women have fought – and won – against the inequalities that they have faced. Powerful women like Carrie Chapman Catt, Ida Wells-Barnett, and Jane Addams who fought diligently during the Progressive Era in order to close the vast gap between men and women. It is because of these women, and so many others, that so many reforms came about since the Progressive Era.
Preceding the 1920s, most women spent their time as mothers and housewives. They were typically seen but not heard. Without voting rights or employment options, women were dependent almost entirely upon their spouses. “Prior to the 1920s, a woman’s place was held to be in the home or engaged in social work.”(Hanson 5). Hanson further explains this fact with the excerpt, “Before World War II many women either never worked outside the home or stopped working after they married.” Disregard, impulse, and spontaneity were just some of the things that began to drive most young women when the World War I concluded. Hanson demonstrates, “As a result of the changes occurring in business, technology and other areas the roles of women and youth in the modern world also evolved in new directions.”(1). This new revolution was thought to be somewhat detrimental not only to women, but also to the families and spouses involved. “They worked perhaps two hours a day, and the rest of the time they ate chocolates, went to the motion pictures, went window-shopping, went in gossiping twos and threes to card parties, read magazines, thought timorously of the lovers who never...
Society has long since considered women the lessor gender and one of the most highly debated topics in society through the years has been that of women’s equality. The debates began over the meaning between a man and woman’s morality and a woman’s rights and obligations in society. After the 19th Amendment was sanctioned around 1920, the ball started rolling on women’s suffrage. Modern times have brought about the union of these causes, but due to the differences between the genetic makeup and socio demographics, the battle over women’s equality issue still continues to exist. While men have always held the covenant role of the dominant sex, it was only since the end of the 19th century that the movement for women’s equality and the entitlement of women have become more prevalent. “The general consensus at the time was that men were more capable of dealing with the competitive work world they now found themselves thrust into. Women, it was assumed, were unable to handle the pressures outside of the home. They couldn’t vote, were discourages from working, and were excluded from politics. Their duty to society was raising moral children, passing on the values that were unjustly thrust upon them as society began to modernize” (America’s Job Exchange, 2013). Although there have been many improvements in the changes of women’s equality towards the lives of women’s freedom and rights in society, some liberals believe that women have a journey to go before they receive total equality. After WWII, women continued to progress in there crusade towards receiving equality in many areas such as pay and education, discrimination in employment, reproductive rights and later was followed by not only white women but women from other nationalities ...
A house is not a home if no one lives there. During the nineteenth century, the same could be said about a woman concerning her role within both society and marriage. The ideology of the Cult of Domesticity, especially prevalent during the late 1800’s, emphasized the notion that a woman’s role falls within the domestic sphere and that females must act in submission to males. One of the expected jobs of a woman included bearing children, despite the fact that new mothers frequently experienced post-partum depression. If a woman were sterile, her purposefulness diminished. While the Cult of Domesticity intended to create obliging and competent wives, women frequently reported feeling trapped or imprisoned within the home and within societal expectations put forward by husbands, fathers, and brothers.
The middle-class women of the late 19th century and the early 20th century achieved remarkable things. Many changed the way women were viewed. For instance, more women than ever before were attending colleges and the teaching profession was transformed into a female-dominated occupation. With higher education under their belts and also experience from the social-settlement movement, women were able to establish organizations and organize social movements that led to change in America. One of the most important reasons why middle-class women succeeded so much in reforms
Schneider, Dorothy. American Women in the Progressive Era 1900-1920. New York: Facts on File, 1993.
During the 1840’s women's rights became a popular topic of discussion. Some people felt as if women needed to remain reserved in the public eye. While others, mostly women, felt as they had little rights when it came to politics and education. Women didn’t receive education after the age of 10, and if they did it was because they taught themselves. Politics was a topic most women were shamed for if they talked about it in public.early feminist insisted whether women were married or not. they deserve the range of individual choices and the essence of freedom. Catherine Beecher and people like her believed that women should remain modest and delicate and that women had a place on Earth given by God; the subordinate.
The twentieth century has given rise to women’s efforts to fight for their rights in the Western world. In the forties, they were relatively emancipated, since they perceived the encouragements to enter the workplace. There, they could enjoy a relative independence and they felt responsible. They proved that they can be “effectual workers”, but when the World War II was over, they had to face new requirements: they had to give up the jobs to the males coming back from the war (“Feminism”). They were and felt misplaced, everyone expected them to take care of their homeplace instead. ...