Women during the Progressive Era
Opening Questions?
• Do boys and girls have the same
opportunities?
• Do you think men and women should have
equal rights in public life?
• Would you vote for a women for president?
• Gender wage gap for women is 77 cents for
each dollar a man makes.
• 10 million more women voters then men
Women in the workforce
• By the late 19th century only middle class and
upper class women could afford to be
housewives
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Farm Women
Women in Industry
Domestic workers
Jobs in offices, stores, and classrooms
New Women’s colleges
• Vassar (1865), Smith and Wellesley colleges
(1875)
• Columbia, Brown, and Harvard establish
separate colleges for women.
• 50% of college educated women in the late
19th century never marry.
Women lead reform
• Dangerous conditions, low wages, and long
hours led many female industrial workers to
push for reforms
• 1896 African American women founded the
National Association of Colored Women
(NACW)
• 1890 National American Woman Suffrage
Association (NAWSA)
New York City 1912
Opposition
• Liquor industry (prohibition)
• Textile industry (restrictions on child labor)
• Many men (fear of the changing role of
women)
Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906)
Alice Paul (1885-1977)
3 Part strategy for Suffrage
• Convince state legislatures to grant women
the right to vote.
- Wyoming (1869) Utah, Colorado, Idaho
(1890’s)
• Pursue court cases against the Fourteenth
Amendment (women illegally voted in
elections)
• Pushed for a national constitutional
amendment to grant women the vote.
19th Amendment
• Congress granted women the right to vote,
the amendment was ratified in 1920
Questions?
• What kind of job opportunities prompted
more women to complete high school?
Questions?
• What kind of job opportunities prompted
more women to complete high school?
• Answer: White collar positions such as
stenographers, typists, and teachers.
• Office jobs
Questions?
• Why do you think some colleges refused to
accept women in the late 19th century?
Questions?
• What women and movements during the
Progressive Era helped dispel the stereotype
that women were submissive and
nonpolitical?
Questions?
• What women and movements during the
Progressive Era helped dispel the stereotype
that women were submissive and
nonpolitical?
• Answer: Susan B. Anthony, Alice Paul,
suffrage, NACW, NAWSA