AMERICAN HISTORY
CH. 16-2 WOMEN AND PUBLIC LIFE
OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN
Late 1800s—women were finding more
opportunities for education and employment
 Women wanted more involvement in the
community
 They sought to use the talents and skills to
make life better for others
 Women were becoming a greater political force

HIGHER EDUCATION
 1833—Oberlin College in Ohio begins admitting
women in addition to men
 1870—about 20% of all college students were
women
 1900—about 1/3 of all college students were
women
 Most women in college were members of the
middle or upper classes

Many professional opportunities were still not
available for women
 The American Medical Association did not start
admitting women until 1915

EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES
 Late 1800s—women worked as teachers and
nurses, bookkeepers, typists, secretaries, and
shop clerks

Newspapers began hiring more women as
artists and journalists
 According to census figures:
 --artists: 1870—412
1900---11,207
 --journalists: 1870—35
1900—2,193
 Working class women and those without a high
school education found jobs in industry
 They tended to be paid less the men were

GAINING POLITICAL EXPERIENCE
Women became the backbone of many reform
movements
 Women learned how to organize, persuade
people, and publicize their causes

CHILDREN’S HEALTH AND WELFARE
 Progressive reformers worked to end child
labor, improve children’s health, and promote
education

Lillian Wald, founder of the Henry Street
Settlement in NYC, believed that government had
a responsibility to tend to the well-being of children
 She wanted an agency at the federal level
 1912—Federal Children’s Bureau opens

PROHIBITION
 Called for a ban on making, selling, and
distributing alcoholic beverages

Reformers believed alcohol was often
responsible for crime, poverty, and violence
against women and children
 Two major national organizations led the
organized crusade against alcohol:
 1) Woman’s Christian Temperance Union
(WCTU)
 Frances Ward led the WCTU 1879-1898
 2) Anti-Saloon League

Reformers also spread the word through
Protestant churches
 Billy Sunday, former baseball player turned
Presbyterian evangelist, preached that saloons
were “the parent of crimes and the mother of
sins.”
 1900—Evangelist Carry Nation carried a bible
in one hand and a hatchet in another

She smashed up saloons in Kansas and urged
others to do the same
 1917—Congress proposes the XVIIIth
Amendment
 Prohibited the manufacture, sale, and
distribution of alcoholic beverages
 States ratified the amendment in 1919
 So unpopular that it was repealed in 1933

CIVIL RIGHTS
 African American women fought for the same
rights as white women
 Ending poverty, promoting child welfare, better
wages, safer working conditions, fighting
alcohol abuse
 Most African American women found they were
not welcome in white organizations so they
formed their own

1896—National Association of Colored Women
(NACW)
 Members included the most prominent colored
women of the time period
 Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Margaret Murray Washington
(Tuskegee Institute), Harriet Tubman (Underground
Railroad)
 1916—NACW had 100,000+ members
 Campaigned against poverty, segregation, and
lynching.

RISE OF THE WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT
1848—Seneca Falls, NY Convention promoting
women’s rights
 72 years of organizing, campaigning, and
persuading before getting the right to vote

THE XVth AMENDMENT
 Women thought they should be given the right
to vote along with African Americans

Abolitionist Horace Greeley urged them to
“remember that this is the Negro hour and your
first duty is to go through the state and plead his
claims.”
 Suffragists waited but not patiently

WOMEN ORGANIZE
 1869—Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B.
Anthony formed the National Woman Suffrage
Association (NWSA)

NWSA campaigned for a constitutional
amendment to give women the right to vote
 Other issues included labor organizing
 1872—Some NWSA members supported
Victoria Woodhull, the first female presidential
candidate
 1869—American Woman Suffrage Association
(AWSA)—Henry Ward Beecher was president

AWSA focused exclusively on winning the right
to vote on a state-by-state basis
 AWSA aligned itself with the Republican Party
 1869—Wyoming Territory became first in
granting the vote to women
 Utah followed a year later
 10 other states followed suite

SUSAN B. ANTHONY TESTS THE LAW
 Anthony worked tirelessly for suffrage with
speeches and pamphlets
 She testified before every Congress 1869-1906
 1872—She and 3 of her sisters staged a
dramatic protest
 They registered to vote, and on Election Day
they voted in Rochester, NY

Two weeks later, they were arrested for
“knowingly, wrongfully and unlawfully” voting
for a representative to the Congress of the
United States
 Before her trial she delivered an address in
which she spelled out many reasons that
justice required that women be given the right
to vote (p. 533)

At her trial the judge did not let her testify on
her own behalf, ruled her guilty, and fined her
$100
 Anthony refused to pay the fine hoping the
judge would arrest her to create a case that
could be appealed through the courts
 The judge refused to imprison Anthony so no
appeal


1875—US Supreme Court ruled that even
though women were citizens, citizenship did
not give them the right to vote. It was up to the
states to grant or withhold voting
ANTI-SUFFRAGE ARGUMENTS
 People opposed to suffrage used several
arguments

1) interfered with duties at home
 2) would destroy families
 3) women did not have the education or
experience
 4) some said most women did not want to vote
 Business interests also disapproved
 Liquor businesses thought women would vote
for prohibition


Others thought women would vote for more
government regulation that would drive up
business costs
TWO ORGANIZATIONS MERGE
 1890—NWSA & AWSA merged
 Now called the National American Woman
Suffrage Association (NAWSA)
 Leader was Elizabeth Cady Stanton 1890-1892

Susan B. Anthony served as President 1892-1900
 Anthony died in 1906
 Her final public comment: “Failure is impossible”
 Most early suffragists did not live to cast a vote
 Only 1 signer of the Seneca Falls declaration
(1848) was still alive in 1920, Charlotte
Woodward, age 92
 THE END
