Women’s Rights
1848-1920
First Wave Feminism
How did 19th century women define women’s
rights?
What was the significance of Femecovert?
What issues divided women’s rights
advocates in 1869?
How did women’s organizations promote
women’s political participation?
What issues divided feminists in the 1919?
How did 19th century women define
women’s rights?
Women’s rights was a critique of
 women’s dependence within marriage
 a call for women full individuality
 regardless of martial status
Femecovert
Sir William Blackstone, in his 1765 authoritative
legal text, Commentaries on the Laws of England,
defined coverture:
"By marriage, the husband and wife are one
person in law: that is, the very being or legal
existence of the woman is suspended during the
marriage, or at least incorporated and
consolidated into that of the husband: under
whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs
every thing; and is therefore called ... a femecovert...."
What was the significance of
coverture?
19th century women who sought to over turn
coverture challenged marriage as a legal
and social structure.
 First as a legal institution created and
enforced by law.
 Second as an economic institution in which
women were subordinated.
Path to Suffrage
 1848 Seneca Falls Convention
 1848 New York State Married Women’s
Property Rights
 1851 Sojourner Truth
 1866 14th Amendment
1851 Sojourner Truth
“I am a woman’s rights [woman]. I have as
much muscle as any man, and can do as much
work as any man. I have plowed and reaped
and husked and chopped and mowed, and can
any man do more than that? I have heard much
about the sexes being equal; I can carry as
much as any man, and can eat as much too, if I
can get it. I am as strong as any man that is
now…”
Mid 19th Century Suffrage Debate
 1869 American Woman’s Suffrage
Association
 1869 National Woman’s Suffrage
Association
 1870 15th Amendment
Division in Women’s Rights 1869
National Woman’s
Suffrage Association
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
and Susan B. Anthony
 Federal constitutional
amendment for Woman
suffrage, equal pay and
more equitable divorce
law.
American Woman’s
Suffrage Association
Lucy Stone and Henry
Blackwell
 Middle class focus on
education, professional
advancement, and
protection of women’s
property and state laws
for enfranchisement
Women’s Organizations
 1874 Woman’s Christian Temperance
Association
 1890 National American Woman’s Suffrage
Association
 Women’s Clubs
 Settlement Houses
 Municipal Housekeeping
20th Century Woman’s Rights
 1912 Progressive Party Platform
 1916 National Woman’s Party
 1920 20th Amendment to the Constitution
Protective Legislation and Court
Cases
Protective Labor Legislation
1899 National Consumer League
1903 Women’s Trade Union League
Protective Labor Court Cases
US Supreme Court
Lochner v. New York (1905)
Muller v. Oregon (1908)
Adkins v. Children’s Hospital (1923)
20th Century Woman’s Rights
 1912 Progressive Party Platform
 1916 National Woman’s Party
 1920 20th Amendment to the Constitution
Woman’s Rights
 Women’s right to individual autonomy
 Questions about marriage as an institution
 Economic autonomy inside and outside of
marriage
Woman’s Suffrage 1919
National Woman’s Party
Alice Paul
Feminist
Anti-War
Public Protest for
Congressional
Suffrage Amendment
Adopted radical
strategies
NAWSA
Carrie Chapman Catt
Social Feminist
Support War
Petition Congress for
suffrage amendment &
continue state efforts
Deplored radical tactics
http://www.archives.gov/education/le
ssons/woman-suffrage/
Kaiser Wilson Photograph Lesson
http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/womansuffrage/kaiser-wilson.html