The west gave chances for women to develop, challenge their skills, test new talents, and to broaden the scope of their home and community service. Most women, who traveled to the western frontier, went out of necessity, looking for husbands (if single) and new opportunities. Women were tasked with having to do mens work as they traveled to get to the western frontier.
After the women arrived on the west side they found in many ways the hardship was not over, but had just begun. Not every woman who moved west was attached to a family. There were single women seeking adventure, or a change of pace, who were eagerly migrating west as well. Sadly, there were also women who lost their husbands early after arriving in the Midwest. Compared to housing they left behind they found these homes very different. During the travel women learned to make do which was beginning to be a good thing to learn. As stated in the articles much of women's work was tied to domestic manufacture. Women quickly found themselves doing double duty. Usually early morning and late afternoons women would plow, milk cows, raise animals and many other things during the course of a typical workday. But some women became teachers and writers or were already doing theses things before the movement. Several women owned boarding houses. These same women were still the keepers of the home and family. Although factories had begun to carry more produce and things that were needed women still made their own food, clothing, and products needed for a living. They would also make things and sell them or trade them for things they needed for their family. They made the decision to do this because they didn't yet have enough money to get things from factories. By fulfillin...
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...filling theses duties the women had an influence on the family decision making process.
Along with the suffering that pioneer women endured came advantages and freedoms that were not available to them back in the east. Pioneer women were responsible for creating and putting new forms of relating and behaving on the frontier. They took much of what they left in the east and used it to create new educational, new social, and spiritual institutions that worked on the frontier. In experiencing new freedoms, some women were direct enough to successfully participate in politics, which was unheard of in the East. In the East physicians, lawyers, and school teachers were men, there was such a demand for professionals in the West, that a few western universities started educating women. These new professionals were able to do quite well on the frontier in such professions.
The book begins by explaining the roles that women in this time were known to have as this helps the reader get a background understanding of a woman’s life pre-war. This is done because later in the book women begin to break the standards that they are expected to have. It shows just how determined and motivated these revolutionary women and mothers were for independence. First and foremost, many people believed that a “woman’s truth was that God had created her to be a helpmate to a man” (p.4). Women focused on the domain of their households and families, and left the intellectual issues of the time and education to the men. Legally, women had almost no rights. Oppressed by law and tradition, women were restricted their choice of professions regardless of their identity or economic status. As a result, many women were left with few choices and were cornered into marriage or spinsterhood, which also had its limitations. As a spinster, you were deemed as unmarried who was past the usual age of marriage. Patronized by society, these women were left and stamped as “rejected”. On the other side, If the woman became married, all that she owned belonged to her husband, even her own existence. In exchange to her commitment, if a woman’s husband was away serving in the military or if she became a widower, she could use but not own, one-third of her husband’s property. This left her to manage the land and serve as a surrogate laborer in her husband’s absence. Needless to say, a day in a woman’s life then was filled with a full day of multi-tasking and as circumstances changed, more women had to adapt to their urban
In reality, was a love for children enough to keep these women in this land far from home? Well, there were other advantages for their staying, as well. When women left the East, they were uncertain of their skills, and many felt this was their only option. But these dedicated women stumbled upon a sense of inner confidence they had never known before, and they also gained a more creative outlook on things. Other young women came with the hope they'd meet their perfect match and live happily ever after. For them, the West offered a sense of adventure worth pursuing.
From 1750 to 1914, the role of women in Western Europe and Eastern Asia gradually changed as a result of industrialization, political revolutions, and European imperialism. The role of women in these two regions were parallel in that the women faced similar hardships in the labor force and women displayed political power by taking part in rebellions and fighting for civil rights. Yet, the women of Eastern Asia had greater access to education and made up an immense portion of the work force
They took over the care part of the trip for their kids and husbands, while the sacrificed(all that they knew) a lot to go west for opportunities for themselves, but especially for their families. Pioneer women moved West to advance themselves socially and politically. Women pioneers also viewed new challenges in this land, including: finding animals to use for food, finding shelter, finding a reliable business with their husbands to keep their family stable financially and so many more. The Manifest Destiny was no easy time for pioneer women in all, so much challenged them.
For the first time women were working in the industries of America. As husbands and fathers, sons and brothers shipped out to fight in Europe and the Pacific, millions of women marched into factories, offices, and military bases to work in paying jobs and in roles reserved for men in peacetime. Women were making a living that was not comparable to anything they had seen before. They were dependent on themselves; for once they could support the household. Most of the work in industry was related to the war, such as radios for airplanes and shells for guns. Peggy Terry, a young woman who worked at a shell-loading plant in Kentucky, tells of the money that was to be made from industrial work (108). “We made a fabulous sum of thirty-two dollars a week. To us that was an absolute miracle. Before that, we made nothing (108)." Sarah Killingsworth worked in a defense plant. " All I wanted to do was get in the factory, because they were payin more than what I'd been makin. Which was forty dollars a week, which was pretty good considering I'd been makin about twenty dollars a week. When I left Tennessee I was only makin two-fifty a week, so that was quite a jump (114)." Terry had never been able to provide for herself as she was able to during the war. " Now we'd have money to buy shoes and a dress and pay rent and get some food on the table. We were just happy to have work (108).” These women exemplify the turn around from the peacetime to wartime atmosphere on the home front. The depression had repressed them to poverty like living conditions. The war had enabled them to have what would be luxury as compared to life before.
As mentioned above, women’s role were unjust to the roles and freedoms of the men, so an advanced education for women was a strongly debated subject at the beginning of the nineteenth century (McElligott 1). The thought of a higher chance of education for women was looked down upon, in the early decades of the nineteenth century (The American Pageant 327). It was established that a women’s role took part inside the household. “Training in needlecraft seemed more important than training in algebra” (327). Tending to a family and household chores brought out the opinion that education was not necessary for women (McElligott 1). Men were more physically and mentally intellectual than women so it was their duty to be the educated ones and the ones with the more important roles. Women were not allowed to go any further than grammar school in the early part of the 1800’s (Westward Expansion 1). If they wanted to further their education beyond grammar, it had to be done on their own time because women were said to be weak minded, academically challenged and could n...
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...
The Colonial Period was partially a "golden age" for women, for, although it did possess some qualities of a golden age, it also had aspects that held it back from fully being a time of prosperity for women. As the Colonial period progress changes in population, lifestyles, and opportunities had effects that opened new doors for women as well as held them back from reaching their full potential.
Women had a role in the forming of our country that many historians overlook. In the years leading to the revolution and after women were political activists. During the war, women took care of the home front. Some poor women followed the army and assisted to the troops. They acted as cooks, laundresses and nurses. There were even soldiers and spies that were women. After the revolution, women advocated for higher education. In the early 1800’s women aided in the increase of factories, and the changing of American society. Women in America were an important and active part of achieving independence and the framing of American life over the years.
Women of the seventeenth century had many reasons to accept the challenge of traversing to the New World. Life in England was not always easy, in fact, sometimes worse than in Virginia. Working conditions were appalling, with little pay and long hours. Many found work as servants to the upper class or turned to prostitution. The type of women who gladly boarded the ships were mostly young, single women of low class roots. Sometimes they were young widows who had been left impoverished or women who had no male in their lives for support and protection.1.
They were mostly in charge of raising children and keeping the house clean and properly functioning. They were mostly financially dependent on their husbands because it was it was considered odd for them to earn money themselves. When factories and new machines begin to revolutionize the American economy, women's roles were changed entirely. The Marketing Revolution creates opportunities for women to earn their own wages and buy things, like clothes and food, which they may not have been able to buy previously themselves without the permission of their husbands to use their money. Women were trying to change the views of gender roles that was implied in society. Most of these women had left their families and worked to achieve a future for themselves while only a small portion of them decided to stay with family back
When all the men were across the ocean fighting a war for world peace, the home front soon found itself in a shortage for workers. Before the war, women mostly depended on men for financial support. But with so many gone to battle, women had to go to work to support themselves. With patriotic spirit, women one by one stepped up to do a man's work with little pay, respect or recognition. Labor shortages provided a variety of jobs for women, who became street car conductors, railroad workers, and shipbuilders. Some women took over the farms, monitoring the crops and harvesting and taking care of livestock. Women, who had young children with nobody to help them, did what they could do to help too. They made such things for the soldiers overseas, such as flannel shirts, socks and scarves.
However, when the war was over, and the men returned to their lives, society reverted back to as it had been not before the 1940s, but well before the 1900s. Women were expected to do nothing but please their husband. Women were not meant to have jobs or worry about anything that was occurrin...
Women were not only separated by class, but also by their gender. No woman was equal to a man and didn’t matter how rich or poor they were. They were not equal to men. Women couldn’t vote own business or property and were not allowed to have custody of their children unless they had permission from their husband first. Women’s roles changed instantly because of the war. They had to pick up all the jobs that the men had no choice but to leave behind. They were expected to work and take care of their homes and children as well. Working outside the home was a challenge for these women even though the women probably appreciated being able to provide for their families. “They faced shortages of basic goods, lack of childcare and medical care, little training, and resistance from men who felt they should stay home.” (p 434)
During the Great War and the huge amount of men that were deployed created the need to employ women in hospitals, factories, and offices. When the war ended the women would return home or do more traditional jobs such as teaching or shop work. “Also in the 1920s the number of women working raised by fifty percent.” They usually didn’t work if they were married because they were still sticking to the role of being stay at home moms while the husband worked and took care of the family financially. But among the single women there was a huge increase in employment. “Women were still not getting payed near as equally as men and were expected to quit their jobs if they married or pregnant.” Although women were still not getting payed as equally it was still a huge change for the women's