APUSH Feminist Movement Part I
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The first feminist movement In the US began in the 1790’s in the letters that Abigail Adams would send
her husband, (President John Adams), which reminded him : “don’t forget the ladies”. By this act,
Abigail was putting forth the message that women were more important than the confines of
Republican Motherhood had placed upon them, and that women did contribute to society far more than
simply idol housewives.
Dorthea Dix grew up in New England in the 1820’s and 1830’s and became impassioned with the art of
teaching at an early age. One day she agreed to teach a Sunday school class at an insane asylum. This
event changed her life when she viewed how the insane were treated at the facility. She vowed to
continue her work. After living briefly in England, where she first came in contact with the insane, she
travelled around Europe searching out hospitals for the insane to view the “normal” treatment that
should be used with people of this nature. Upon returning to the US, Dix opened a treatment facility to
care for the insane in a humane setting. The Civil War interrupted her work—she helped run and
manage a Northern hospital (specifically working with the nurses). Upon the end of the Civil War, Dix
returned to her work as caregiver for the insane. (Dorthea Dix—more than any other American—is
remembered for her courageous efforts with the insane).
Seneca Falls Conference 1848—this was the New York gathering place of activist women, (and men),
that continued this first wave of feminism who demanded to be heard. At the Seneca Falls Conference, a
new document was drawn up to resemble and improve upon the Declaration of Independence drawn up
by white males. The document in question was the Declaration of Sentiments:
Declaration of Sentiments.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of man to assume
among the people of the earth a position different from that which they have hitherto occupied, but one to which the
laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they
should declare the causes that impel them to such a course.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain inalienable rights;
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott were most responsible for organizing the Seneca Falls
Conference for the rights of all American women. Susan B. Anthony would join Stanton for a life-long
pursuit of justice for American women.
Both Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony fought their entire lives for
women’s rights and for the female to vote (19th Amendment in 1920).
Susan B. Anthony was responsible for establishing the National Woman’s Suffrage Association in 1869.
She was also the author of a Bill in 1878 that demanded women’s suffrage (the right to vote): the Bill
was killed in Congress but was re-introduced in 1918 where it passed in both the House and the Senate.
In 1919, the 20th Amendment to the Constitution permitted women to vote for the first time in US
history.
Men as well as women finally agreed that it was irresponsible to bar women
from voting. By 1918, waves of female suffragists had continued this
constant quest—to vote. Protests went so far as to picket Wilson’s White
House. (notice the universities the ladies graduated from)
Alice Paul was relentless in her organizing and picketing of the White House during the Wilson Presidency prior to WWI. Her
work on a Federal Amendment for women’s suffrage was tireless to the point that the women would be hauled off to prision,
only to be replaced with two more picketers who demanded the same justice.
Kaiser Wilson was the name created to defame President Wilson because he was not
only ignoring the cry for women’s suffrage, he was hauling them off to jail!
1913—Alice Paul demanded women’s rights
In 1916—Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in the US in Brooklyn, NY. She was
arrested for this action after a couple weeks. The citizens felt that doctors (or clinics) should not “help” a
woman have an abortion because it promoted promiscuity (fooling around). The 1920’s was the era of
the flapper (loose women who smoked and drank in speakeasies—along side men in these underground
clubs. The idea was that now that women had the right to vote, and the Great War was over, women
were gonna party. The problem was that if they did get pregnant, they would lose their job. Therefore,
unwanted pregnancies were handled by primitive methods too gruesome to mention and quite frankly,
make my toes curl. Ms. Sanger was attempting to assist these women who would get infections and
possibly die due to the unsanitary condition the attempted abortion created. Others—(conservatives)—
felt this was a green light to have sex which violated the ideals of motherhood and family values.
Her clinic would reopen in 1923 to help American women with a choice.
Margaret Sanger the mother of eugenics. Her clinics went on to become known as
“Planned Parenthood”
Car ride with Hitler--??
Sanger was a hardcore racist and white supremacist loved by Hitler for her ideas on sterilization.
Part II of Women’s Rights begins with Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1930’s