Milestones
and Key
Figures in
Women’s
History
Life in Colonial America
• Anne Hutchinson
• Legal status of colonial women
– Lost property rights when they
married
– No separate legal identity apart
from their husbands
– Single women and widows did
have legal right to own property
• Chesapeake Colonies
– Due to the scarcity of women,
their status was elevated
– “widowarchy”
The Early Republic, 1789-1815
• Abigail Adams
– Early proponent of women’s rights
– “remember the ladies”
• Cult of domesticity/republican
motherhood
– Cult: the idealization of women in
their roles as wives and mothers
– Rep: responsibility of women to raise
children to be virtuous citizens
– Throughout history, women have
supported the cult of domesticity
(Catharine Beecher, Phyllis Schlafley)
Women in Antebellum America, 1815-1860
• Lowell System
– 1820’s to 1830’s
– Irish immigrants began to
replace them leading up to the
Civil War
• Seneca Falls Convention
– Elizabeth Cady Stanton and
Lucretia Mott
– Called for suffrage, property
rights, and educational
opportunities
– “Declaration of Sentiments”
Women in Antebellum America, 1815-1860
• Characteristics of Women’s Movement in the
Antebellum Period
– Middle class women
– Broad-based platform
– Close links to temperance and abolition
movements
– Strongest in Northeast and Midwest, not south
• Sarah Moore Grimke
– One of the first women to publicly support
abolition and women’s suffrage
– Grimke quote: “I ask no favors for my sex. I
surrender not our claim to equality. All I ask of
our brethren is that they will take their feet off
our necks.”
Reformers and Suffragettes, 1865-1920
• Jane Addams
– Hull House
– Settlement house movement
• Centers of women’s activism and reform
efforts for the urban poor
• Taught classes on cooking and
dressmaking, published reports on
deplorable housing conditions, literacy and
language classes for immigrants, and day
nurseries for working mothers
• The Fight for Suffrage
– Frontier west tended to promote equality
– Wyoming (1869) first state to grant women full
right to vote
– 19th Amendment
Reformers and Suffragettes, 1865-1920
• Women’s Christian Temperance
Union
– Carrie Nation
– Moral responsibility to improve
society
• Women and progressive reforms
– Dorothea Dix
– Ida B. Wells Barnett
– Women were actively involved in
Progressive reforms associated
with the passage of child labor
laws at the state level and
campaigns to limit working hours
of women and children
•
Reformers and Suffragettes, 1865-1920
• Women and the workplace
– Late 19th century, majority of
workforce young and
unmarried
– Most likely to work as
domestic servants, garment
workers, teachers, cigar
makers
– Least likely to work as
physicians and lawyers
Boom and Bust, 1920-1940
• Flappers
– Symbolized new freedom for
women by challenging
traditional attitudes
• Women and the workforce
– % of single women in the
labor force declined in the
1920’s
– Did not receive equal pay and
continued to face
discrimination
– Most married women did not
seek work outside of the
home
Boom and Bust, 1920-1940
• Margaret Sanger
– Birth control for women
• Decline of the feminist
movement
– 19th amendment, changing
morals and manners
symbolized by flappers,
disagreements concerning
goals, decline of Progressive
Era
• Alice Paul
– ERA
• Eleanor Roosevelt
– Most active first lady in US
history
Women and the Workplace, 1941-1960
• World War II
– Widespread movement of
women into factory work
– Married women
– “Rosie the Riveter”
• 1950’s
– Women were encouraged to
give up their factory jobs and
return home (cult of
domesticity returns)
Modern Women’s Rights Movement
• Betty Friedan
– Feminine Mystique
– First president of NOW
• Organization founded to
challenge sex
discrimination in the
workplace
– Feminism tended to be a
middle-class movement
– Betty Friedan known for her
criticism of traditional gender
roles
Modern Women’s Rights Movement
• ERA
– Did not pass despite efforts
throughout the 1960’s and
1970’s
– Phyllis Schlafly led a
campaign to block ratification
of the Equal Rights
Amendment (cult of
domesticity)
• Female vice-presidential
candidates
– Geraldine Ferraro
– Sarah Palin