Four Women in History Many women have contributed to supporting women 's rights, leaving their mark on history. Four women will be discussed, describing their work and events that incorporate the campaign that each woman supported or lead. Jeannette Rankin (active 1910-1968) Born June 11, 1880, Jeannette Rankin was the first woman elected into U.S. Congress at the age of 36. After attending college, she tried several jobs, following her mother’s lead as a teacher, then a seamstress, and finally a social worker. She was also a pacifist, reformer, and women’s suffrage activist. Having moved to Washington State, she became involved with the suffrage movement, pursuing the need to amend that state 's constitution, allowing voting rights for women. Once Washington was ratified in 1911, Rankin returned home to Montana, fighting for the liberty to vote there, taking until 1914 to establish those rights. With her activist past, Rankin was elected into U.S. Congress in 1916, and would serve a second term in 1940. This afforded her a distinctive opportunity of voting against US entry into war during both World War I (in 1917) and World War II (in 1941). However, she fought for rights of the working women of the war effort, creating the women 's rights legislation. When her term ended in 1919, Rankin served as a delegate on the Women 's International Conference for Peace in Switzerland. Following that, she was an active member of the Women 's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). In 1939, Rankin once again ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, winning based on her anti-war position. She voted against entry into war, although Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1941, being the only protesting vote. After the end of th... ... middle of paper ... ... she ran as the Presidential candidate under the ideologically Georgist Commonwealth Land Party. Along with Nettie Rogers Shuler, in 1923, Catt published Woman Suffrage and Politics: The Inner Story of the Suffrage Movement. She was active in anti-war causes during the 1920s and 1930s, returning to the peace movement, founding a new organization, the National Committee on the Cause and Cure of War (NCCCW. They separated war causes into four classes: political, economical, psychological, and social/contributory. The organization took it upon themselves to end wars since women appeared to be morally courageous, whereas males were deemed physically courageous. During 1940 in New York, Catt assisted with organization of the Women 's Centennial Congress, a celebration of the feminist movement within the United States. She died in New Rochelle, New York on March 9, 1947.
To begin with, there are many events in United States history that have shaped our general understanding of women’s involvement in economics, politics, the debates of gender and sexuality, and so forth. Women for many centuries have not been seen as a significant part of history, however under thorough analyzation of certain events, there are many women and woman-based events responsible for the progressiveness we experience in our daily lives as men, women, children, and individuals altogether. Many of these events aid people today to reflect on the treatment of current individuals today and to raise awareness to significant issues that were not resolved or acknowledged in the past.
“Even in the modern day world, women struggle against discriminatory stigmas based on their sex. However, the beginnings of the feminist movement in the early 20th century set in motion the lasting and continuing expansion of women's rights” (Open Websites). One such organization that pushed for women’s rights was the National American Women Suffrage Association (NAWSA), established in 1890. The NAWSA was the largest suffrage organization and worked toward securing the right to vote. The NAWSA however was split into two, the NAWSA and the National Women’s Party (NWP), when suffragists were disagreeing on how to achieve their goal.
beliefs of fighting for women to have the right to vote. In 1918 Edith took
I have read Kathryn Kish Sklar book, brief History with documents of "Women's Rights Emerges within the Antislavery Movement, 1830-1870" with great interest and I have learned a lot. I share her fascination with the contours of nineteenth century women's rights movements, and their search for meaningful lessons we can draw from the past about American political culture today. I find their categories of so compelling, that when reading them, I frequently lost focus about women's rights movements history and became absorbed in their accounts of civic life.
Women have had it rough throughout history. Their declining position in the world started during the Neolithic revolution, into Rome, and past the Renaissance. However, at the turn of the twentieth century, women began advocating for equality no matter their governmental situation. This promotion of women's rights is evident in communist nations during the twentieth century and their fight against hundreds of years of discrimination. It can be seen that women were brainwashed into believing that their rights were equal with the male population through the use of propaganda, yet this need for liberation continued despite government inadequacy at providing these simple rights. Women in communist countries struggled for rights in the twentieth
After many years of battling for equality among the sexes, people today have no idea of the trails that women went through so that women of future generations could have the same privileges and treatment as men. Several generations have come since the women’s rights movement and the women of these generations have different opportunities in family life, religion, government, employment, and education that women fought for. The Women’s Rights Movement began with a small group of people that questioned why human lives, especially those of women, were unfairly confined. Many women, like Sojourner Truth and Fanny Fern, worked consciously to create a better world by bringing awareness to these inequalities. Sojourner Truth, prominent slave and advocate
One of the most important women, and often most forgotten, during women’s suffrage is Alice Paul. She was the first woman to earn her Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania and also earned a law degree at American University. She founded the National Women’s Party (NWP) in 1916. The way she fought for women’s rights was very different than how the women in the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) fought for it. Although, in the end, they congratulated Alice Paul and the work she had done to get women’s rights. She had raised $750,000 in less than 10 years in the fight for the 19th amendment, which in today’s society would be $9.9 million. She also created the idea of lobbying, which is still actively used in modern politics. Her efforts and drive are what make her one of the most important women to study in women’s history. She is often never even mentioned during history classes when students are being taught about women’s suffrage. Teachers and professors usually stick with the more ...
Firstly, after California granted women’s suffrage in 1911, NAWSA distributed a bulletin about the success of the change in California. To convince the public, and especially state government officials, that women’s suffrage would have a positive impact, NAWSA used California as an example, saying “Women Vote More Rapidly and With Fewer Mistakes than men” and “As a Rule Women Do Not Vote Unless They Understand a Question.” As the US joined the war in 1917, NAWSA took part in the war effort. Catt created three sub-branches of NAWSA- Food Conservation, Protection of Women in Industry, and Overseas Hospitals, that worked at infirmaries, rolled bandages, sold savings bonds, and opened a military hospital in France. NAWSA’s actions also included taking over jobs left by men drafted into war, which helped prove to many that women were as a capable as men. Years later, in November 1917, Catt delivered a speech to Congress, about why “Woman suffrage [was] inevitable.” Catt states three reasons why she believed so- “the history of [the] country,” “the suffrage for women already established in the United States,” and lastly, “the leadership of the United States in world democracy [compelled] the enfranchisement of its own women.” The mere existence of this speech shows that NAWSA prefered peaceful methods used to obtain equal voting rights
Jeannette Rankin was a lady that didn’t like the thought of war and people being hurt and people losing family members because of it. So she devoted her life to women rights and preventing war. Jeannette Rankin impacted society by devoting her life to being the first congress woman, helping families achieve their rights, being a women’s activist.
In early American society the males dominated everything from land owning to public office; however, eventually the females carved out a path among the overwhelming white male society. The Women's Rights campaign lasted from about 1848 and continued into the 1920s. Specifically, Jeannette Rankin paved the way for women in national office. She was the first woman elected into the House of Representatives and, therefore, into Congress. She was also one of the few suffragists elected into Congress. Rankin lead the way for future women in Congress and she even said "I won't be the last." Originally from Montana, Rankin served two separate terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and always stated her opinion, even if it was against the majority.
She used this to address the issue of women’s rights to work the same job as men. She also wrote several articles in which she discussed the struggle for women in the workplace. In the 1880s and 90s, the State Department selected her to be a delegate at a gathering in Switzerland called the Congress of Charities. For several years to come she spoke on world peace, and in 1912 she retired from practicing law. A few years before her death she traveled to Europe to give on last speech to women, encouraging them to continue her life’s work of obtaining women’s rights in a male dominated world. After nearly 40 years of advocation for women and practicing law she passed away in 1917, just three years shy of seeing women obtain the right to vote.
For countless years, women in the United States lived without basic rights, such as the right to vote. Over a decade, thousands of women marched, petitioned, and spoke out for equal rights. One of the most outspoken supporter for women’s right to vote was Jeannette Rankin. Rankin was the first woman to serve in the U.S. Congress. She helped pass the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote, and was a committed pacifist and suffragette. She had a great compassion for the veterans of war and she always said that men and women are like the left hand and the right hand; both are needed to promote cumulative change in society. Rankin was an extreme pacifist, refusing to vote to support both World War I and II. Her vote made no impact on the
The French Revolution was a period of time in which France underwent many changes, many which could be considered revolutionary. France’s whole system and way of being was completely changed. New ideas were proposed everyday. An idea is revolutionary when it is a new idea, when it is something that has never been thought of before. The Declaration of the Rights of Women written by Olympe de Gouges on September 1791, was one of the ideas proposed to the National Assembly (Hunt, Web 1). The document proposed that since the French Revolution was all about finding equality for all people, women should be equal to men and therefore, should have the same rights as men did. Women at the time live in terrible conditions. They had little access to education, and therefore could not enter professional occupations that required advanced education, were legally deprived of the right to vote, and were not considered citizens (Class Discussion Notes). If equal rights were not given to women, the French Revolution had not reached its full potential, according to Gouges. She expressed this idea in her document, saying, “This revolution will only take effect when all women become fully aware of their deplorable condition, and of the rights they have lost in society” (Gouges, Web). Anyone that questioned the Revolution was immediately put to death (Class Discussion Notes). If Gouges’ document and ideas were important enough to catch the attention of the National Assembly and for her to be put to death, her ideas could be considered important and revolutionary (Britannica, Web 1) But, the document was not revolutionary. The Declaration of the Rights of Women was not a revolutionary document because its ideas were taken from other people and were no...
“I do not wish them [women] to have power over men; but over themselves” – Mary Wollstonecraft. In the 19th century the hot topic was women’s rights everybody had an opinion about it. Of course the expected ones like Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton had much to say but a few unexpected ones like William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass spoke out for women’s rights. The focus will be the responsibilities and roles that the activists played in the Women’s Rights or Feminist Movement. The relevance to the theme is the activists had a very important role toward reaching the ultimate goal of the Women’s Rights Movement. The Women’s Rights Movement was one of the most essential times in American history; it was the fight for women acquiring the same rights as men. Susan B. Anthony was considered the leader of the Women’s Rights Movement after she was denied the right to speak in a temperance convention; she had the responsibility of creating the National Women’s Suffrage Association (NWSA) and helping to secure voting rights by her historic court case, the Trials of Susan B. Anthony. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an important women’s rights activist that helped plan the first organized women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York and wrote the Declaration of Sentiments. Lucretia Mott worked along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton to plan the first women’s rights convention and wrote the, “Discourse on Women”. Lucy Stone formed the American Women’s Suffrage Association (AWSA) and convince individual states to join the effort towards women rights. These women had an influence in the National American Women’s Suffrage Association’s (NAWSA) achievement of the goals in the Women’s Rights Movement. These women had a profound effect on reaching equal rights between men and women.
University of South Carolina, 2004. Pearson Education. Info please. Almanacs: “Key Events in Women’s Rights Movement” 2005 31 March 2005. Wohlpart, Jim.