Continuity and Change in the Identity of Women

Women in Colonial Times (1607-1775)

  1. New England - wife is subordinate to her husband; patriarchal society
  2. The South—death rates are higher so women are more likely to become the head of the household
  3. General trends - Women gave up all personal property and guardianship of children to her husband. Even single women could not sue anyone or be sued, or make contracts, and divorce was almost impossible until the late eighteenth century.
  4. Influence of the Enlightenment - weakened the view that husbands were natural "rulers" over their wives and replacing it with a (slightly) more liberal conception of marriage.

Women in the Revolution and Federal Period (1775-1825)

  1. Revolutionary War – some women worked at army camps as cooks and nurses; in a few instances, women actually fought in battle (ex. Mary McCauley “Molly Pitcher”); at home, women ran family farms and businesses and provided food and clothing to the men
  2. Post-Revolution: Despite their wartime efforts, women gain no new legal or politcal rights. The desire of women to have a place in the new republic was most famously expressed by Abigail Adams to her husband“Remember the Ladies”. Women did gain the new social role of Republican motherhood - women had the essential role of instilling their children with values conducive to a healthy republic; therfore, education for upper calss girls was

Early Industrialization (1825-1850)

  1. Waltham or Lowell System (Lowell, Mass.)

1. Lowell factories deemed a model of using young, single women for factory work

2. Lowell designed a "model" community--courtyards, secure dormitories for girls to live in,

prepared meals, religious exercises, etc.

3. most only worked for a few years, then left to get married

  1. Cult of Domesticity – Married women were expected to be pious, pure, and submissive to men. These were considered by many at the time to be "the natural state" of womanhood. Women and men had their separate spheresof influence

Early Activism, Jacksonian Era reforms (1825-1860)

  1. Middle class women were active in northern reform movements. This was an acceptable part of women’s separate sphere.
  2. Asylums and penitentaries - Dorothea Dix
  3. Temperance: women joined the American Temperance Society
  4. Transcendentalism—Margaret Fuller
  5. Abolitionist movement – Sojourner Truth, Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone, the Grimké sisters, Harriet Tubman
  6. Women’s Rights—the Seneca Falls convention (1848) - Elizabeth Cady Stantonand Lucretia Mott
  1. Declaration of Sentiments - men were said to be in the position of a tyrannical government over women
  1. Susan B. Anthony- led to the focus on women's suffrage over more practical issues in the latter half of the 19th century; feminists assumed that once women had the vote, they would have the political will to deal with any other issues

Women in the Civil War and Reconstruction (1861-1877)

  1. Women took over men’s jobs (although lost them when men returned home)
  2. Opened up the field of nursing to women (Clara Barton)
  3. African American male suffrage (15th Amendment) reignited the women’s suffrage movement

The Gilded Age (1875-1900)

  1. Women participated in the Social Gospel movement (Jane Addams—Hull House) and the revived temperance movement (WCTU)
  2. Women working – result of continued industrialization and urbanization

1. by 1890s, large number of women had entered the workplace (1 out of every 5; most single; only

5% of working women were married)

2. wages: generally half of what men received; women seen as temporary, not permanent

breadwinners for families

3. Women and the labor movement: opposed by most men; women formed the International Ladies Garment Workers Union

C. Women were more likely to earn a higher education; urban women had fewer children

The Progressive Era

A.Prohibition – Women’s Christian Temperance Union (Carry A. Nation) – helped push for the 18th Amendment

B.Settlement houses

1.Hull House started by Jane Addams;run by young, middle-class, well-educated women

2.provided social services to people in immigrant neighborhoods

C.Progressive women pushed for educational equality, liberalizing marriage and divorce laws, reducing job discrimination, and recognizing women’s rights to own property

D. Organized efforts for suffrage

1. National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA)

a. led first by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, then followed by Carrie Chapman

Catt in 1900

2. National Woman's Party

a. founded in 1913by Alice Paul; much more militant

b. attempted to bring direct pressure on federal government to pass an amendment

3. Nineteenth Amendment ratified in 1920 (after contributions of women in WWI)

1920s, the Depression and World War II

A. WWI – more than 11,000 women enter the workforce

B. Post WWI

1. the promise of power in the 19th Amendment proved illusory to women during the 1920s

2. Women's movement splinters apart

a. some women's groups push for an equal rights amendment, while others viciously condemn it

as putting women in unnatural positions

3. Challenges to the "private sphere" of women

a. Margaret Sanger--nurse who fought hard to get legalized birth control

C. The 1920s - a number of young Americans (mostly middle-class living in the cities) reject the values of

their elders about: sex, dress, public behavior, & religion - Flappers

1. they drink bootleg liquor, go to jazz clubs, discuss openly, date, wearing makeup, smoking, shortening hair and skirts

D. The Depression - economic guarantees granted to retirees, their wives and children and their widows,

through the Social Security Act;Frances Perkins is appointed as the first female Cabinet member

E. WWII

  1. 350,000 women served in the war: Wacs, Waves, Spars, Marines and nurses
  2. more than 6 million American women enter the paid labor force--by 1945 women are over 1/3 of employed workers
  3. "Rosie the Riveter" becomes symbol of female defense-plant workers

F. Post-WWII – most women lost their jobs to men returning from the war; however, in many white collar sectors, such as

banking and clerical work, the glass ceiling was moved significantly upward.

1950s

  1. TheGI Bill, suburbanization, and the reuniting of separated spouses fostered the baby boom; the nuclear family at one of its historic peaks, Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care reinforced this
  2. During the 1950s, popular culture portrayed career women as unfulfilled; homemakers and mothers were the ideal

1960s - The growth of modern feminism

  1. Resurgence of feminist movement in the 1960s
  2. 1963, Betty Friedan's The Feminist Mystique is published--it articulates the growing unhappiness of middle-class white women with the 1950s emphasis on motherhood and domesticity
  3. 1966, National Organization for Women (NOW) founded--it lobbies for women's full economic and social equality
  4. Successes

1. legalization of birth control in all states Griswold v. Conn., (1963); legalization of abortion with Roe v. Wade (1973)

C. Problem areas

1. women paid less than men; glass ceiling in effect for job advancement

2. ERA passes Congress in 1972, 28 states ratify quickly, but amendment fails to get enough votes for

Ratification; Phyllis Schlafly led anti-ERA movement

1970s - present

  1. Geraldine Ferraro was the Democratic Party VP candidate in 1984
  2. In 1981, Sandra Day O'Connorbecame the first woman to become a member of the Supreme Court. There are currently three women on the Supreme Court.
  3. Nancy Pelosi became the first female Speaker of the House of Representatives from 2007-2011