19th-Century Women
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Women in the nineteenth century, for the most part, had to follow the common role presented to them by society. This role can be summed up by what historians call the “cult of domesticity”. The McGuffey Readers does a successful job at illustrating the women’s role in society. Women that took part in the overland trail as described in “Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey” had to try to follow these roles while facing many challenges that made it very difficult to do so.
One of the most common expectations for women then is that they are responsible for doing the chore of cleaning whether it is cleaning the house, doing the laundry. The McGuffey Readers mentions the women’s duty to clean in a multiple places. In this handbook it gives clear directions to the woman on what she is to do when cleaning, “This ceremony completed, and the house thoroughly evacuated, the next operation is to smear the wall and ceilings with brushes dipped into a solution of lime… (Gorn 111).” The book explains how it is the women’s job to thoroughly clean the house once a year in a manner that sounds very laborious! It further states, “The misfortune is, that the sole object is to make things clean (Gorn 112).” In this part of the book it is very clear that it is saying that the woman’s duty is to clean. In Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey it illustrates this in a couple of passages. For example, one woman wrote in her diary, “Oh! Horrors how shall I express it; it is the dreaded washing day . . . but washing must be done and procrastination won’t do it for me (Schlissel 83).” Although this woman obviously did not like doing the washing she saw it as her job to do. In addition, the book describes this scene, “The banks of a river would be lined with women who carried their kettles, their washtubs, and piles of unwashed linen (Schlissel 82).” Again, it is the women who are doing the cleaning. The McGuffey Readers being the handbook that young girls would read in school taught them that it was their place to do the cleaning. It is apparent that they took that into consideration as shown by the Women’s Diaries and even today is seen as their role.
Women were a nurturing part of the household and therefore it was seen as their job to take care of the children. For example, the editor of the McGuffey’s states, “the middle-class...
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...s of the journey were of such extremes that they made the travels skip something that they were forced to believe was a very important ritual.
Since people could not run around naked someone had to make the clothes or buy them and that was the women. “And the mother mends Harry’s stockings (Gorn 49).” Once again it states the “mother” as the one doing this chore. The women on the trail though it shows had little time to care about mending clothes, “The majority of the overland women wore what clothing they had and prayed that what they wore would not tear. They were too preoccupied with the necessities of the day to consider fashion at all (Schlissel 105).” I would be happy if I were these women because that just means one less chore that was their “duty” to perform.
In conclusion, the woman of the Victorian Era had her role in life planned out from before she was born. Although it was a dreadful role these women carried it out in a way that shows their purity of the heart and willingness to do so many of things for others and for little return. They were truly a remarkable testament to hard work and ingenuity of the time that even the men of the time could have learned from.
“The Pastoralization of Housework” by Jeanne Boydston is a publication that demonstrates women’s roles during the antebellum period. Women during this period began to embrace housework and believed their responsibilities were to maintain the home, and produce contented and healthy families. As things progressed, housework no longer held monetary value, and as a result, womanhood slowly shifted from worker to nurturer. The roles that women once held in the household were slowly diminishing as the economy became more industrialized. Despite the discomfort of men, when women realized they could find decent employment, still maintain their household and have extra income, women began exploring their option.
The industrialization of the nineteenth century was a tremendous social change in which Britain initially took the lead on. This meant for the middle class a new opening for change which has been continuing on for generations. Sex and gender roles have become one of the main focuses for many people in this Victorian period. Sarah Stickney Ellis was a writer who argued that it was the religious duty of women to improve society. Ellis felt domestic duties were not the only duties women should be focusing on and thus wrote a book entitled “The Women of England.” The primary document of Sarah Stickney Ellis’s “The Women of England” examines how a change in attitude is greatly needed for the way women were perceived during the nineteenth century. Today women have the freedom to have an education, and make their own career choice. She discusses a range of topics to help her female readers to cultivate their “highest attributes” as pillars of family life#. While looking at Sarah Stickney Ellis as a writer and by also looking at women of the nineteenth century, we will be able to understand the duties of women throughout this century. Throughout this paper I will discuss the duties which Ellis refers to and why she wanted a great change.
In doing this she is listing off things that the Daughter should be acting out upon. “Don 't squat down to play marbles—you are not a boy, you know” (Kincaid 68). The mother is demonstrating how the daughter should act in the presences of boys and explain she is not one. As a girl she must act proper and not play the ways boys do. Boys are aggressive and dirty as seen by society; a girl like she is supposed to be kind and proper. Then the mother explains in one section on how to do housework and chores; a woman’s job. “This is how you iron your father’s khaki shirt so it doesn’t have a crease; this is how you iron your father’s khaki pants so they don’t have a crease” (Kincaid 67). Kincaid writes that the mother is instructing the daughter on how to do her father’s clothing. This shows that the father; a man does not iron his own clothes but that it is a woman’s job. This can connect to Judy Brady’s work “I Want a Wife” which is about a woman who is listing all the things women do for their husband. Like Kincaid she brings up the same chores of housework and tending to clothing. “A wife who will pick up after me. I want a wife who will keep my clothes clean, ironed, mended,
In the late 19th century women traditions started to shift. In the 19th century men and even women of that time would have said that women were and are born with the God-given role of solely being a wife and a mother. Women were also known as the caretaker of the house and everything and everyone who lived inside. About half way down his passage Hartman writes, the Victorian home was to be a place of comfort and quiet, as to shelter from all the realities of the world. Housework was to be taken seriously and important to the full dynamic of the household. Children were to be cherished and nurtured from birth up into adulthood. (Hartman, 2nd paragraph) Women of the household main priority and life goal was to make all these things happen and make the home run as smooth as possib...
In the article, Cult of True Womanhood, the underlying theme is of what society thought was the ideal woman. Women of that time where thought of as homemakers “deeply shaped by the so called “cult of womanhood” a collection of attitudes that associated “true” womanhood with home and family.” Women were supposed to stay home and clean and take care of the children while men worked and provided for their families. The misconception that housework was not hard and that even these women didn’t work as hard as paid labors was a strong opinion of the time. “With economic value calculated more and more exclusively in terms of cash and men increasingly basing their claims to “manhood” on their role as “breadwinners,” women’s unpaid household labor went largely unacknowledged.” Many married women ran their households and took on extra work to support their families and many in underpaid positions. Many of these were even in the service of other’s houses working in “true womanhood”
Unfortunately, kitten mills contribute to cat overpopulation. An abundance of kitten mill cats are not needed when there are already many homeless cats. Because so many cats are homeless, many end up being euthanized, commonly known as being “put to sleep” or “put down.” In Tulsa, Oklahoma, 65% of the animals that enter an animal shelter are euthanized, due to a lack of shelter space, which is caused by overpopulation. Shelters in Indiana face the same dilemma: when there isn’t space for more animals, healthy animals end up being euthanized. However, even for the cats that aren’t euthanized, life is not always stable. According to the Humane League of the United States, only one out of every five cats lives in one...
Women had a specific role they had to fill. They had to look just so, act just so, raise the children in a certain way, and keep up the house in a perfect way. Many women tried to fill this position of the “perfect housewife”. They wore corsets that put about 22 pounds of pressure on their internal organs, which caused cracked ribs, displacement of the liver and uterine prolapsed and collapsed lungs, all just to look the way men wanted them to. Women balanced their ever so busy family lives as well as their social lives. They stayed home to take care of the kids, while taking a break to have friends over for tea or coffee. Women had to be the picture of perfection.
The Victorian era established strict guidelines and definitions for the ladies and gentleman. Noble birth typically defined one as a "lady" or a "gentleman," but for women in this time period, socioeconomic rank and titles held no prestige or special privileges in a male-dominated society. Commonly, women in this era generally tried to gain more influence and respect but to no avail as their male counterparts controlled the ideals and practices of society. Women were subject to these ideals and practices without any legal or social rights or privileges. In the literary titles by Frances Power Cobbe, Sarah Stickney Ellis, Charlotte Bronte, Anne Bronte, John Henry Cardinal Newman, Sir Henry Newbolt, and Caroline Norton, the positions, opinions, and lifestyles of men and women during the Victorian era were clearly defined. Men in the Victorian era were raised to be intellectually and physically sound in order to be skillful in the workplace and the military while women were typically restricted to fulfilling roles within the home. As the female desire for equal rights and representation under the law mounted, an international vigor for female equality would produce a call for equality.
Firstly, an African American maid raised white children and had many chores while doing so. An experienced black maid quoted on “History Matters” refers to the amount of work she had to do by saying, “It’s “Mammy, do this, “or “Mammy, do that,” or “Mammy do the other,” from my mistress, all the time.” The maids were required to wash, dress, and feed the children more than three times a day. Somet...
The Victorian woman was her husband’s chattel. She was completely dependent upon him and subject to him. She had no right to sue for divorce or to the custody of her children should the couple separate. She could not make a will or keep her earnings. Her area of expertise, her sphere, was in the home as mother, homemaker and devoted domestic. Clear and distinct gender boundaries were drawn: Men were “ . . . competitive, assertive, . . . and materialistic.” Women were “pious, pure, gentle . . . and sacrificing” (Woloch 125).
Some veterans say that they had a wonderful experience in the military while others think it was horrible. Braulio has no regrets till this day about joining the United States Military. If he had a chance to do it all over, he would do everything the way he did back then. Braulio recommends joining the military because you learn many life lessons that you should know and you should bring those lessons into your daily life. You also get close friends when in service because they are the only family you have there and Braulio remains in contact with friends from his
In times before the Victorian era, it was common for women to work alongside men to run farms and contribute to the family businesses. However, when jobs began to move outside the home and men traveled to work every day, the women were left at home with their daughters, expected to run the household (Hughes 1). The failure of the society at the time to recognize the injustice in which this lifestyle served to the women was the root of gender inequality in the Victorian
The military is a vary strict and demanding system, you should be forced to join because it is not meant for everyone. It takes strong people physically, and mentally some people are fit to be in the military.Another reason is medical reasons, some people may not be eligible to serve as demanded. Some people would just simply be scared fighting out on the front lines, that would cause them to flake and that could get them and their teammates killed. That is why people should not be forced to fight in the armed forces.
Television can disrupt our children’s education and creativity. Time is taking away from our children’s study. The kid’s attention span is smaller. Instead of concentrating on their own imagination, they are concentrating on others creativity. Despite all this negativity, television can be very beneficial. Children who watch educational programs have better math and verbal skills. High quality programs can provide our children with a well rounded education like history, science, humanities, religion, the environment, and much more.
It is implied that since the dawn of time, women have been inferior to thy fellow man. It was not until the Age of Enlightenment, which began around 1650 in Europe, that the first ideas of women being as competent as men, lacking only education and not intelligence, began to circulate (Online MBA). As the end of the 18th Century neared, women were regulars in salons and academic debates, though schooling for women would come late down the road (Online MBA). Prior to the birth of the Industrial Revolution, women did not work. Those who did work were from lower class families and many of those were minorities. It was the primary idea that a women’s role was of that at the home; cooking sewing, cleaning, and caring for the children. There were many duties required of them around the house and their focus was to be the supportive wife who dutifully waited for the husband to come home after a long day at work.