Temperance Movement Dbq

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The rising opportunities in the United States during the antebellum period, the 1820s to 1850s, had attracted thousands of immigrants to come every year, especially Germans and the Irish. With many immigrants seeking labor to make a living, industry and factory work were able to flourish. The Industrial Revolution that was happening in the United States caused the inventions of an improved printing press and the telegraph. Industrialization was the foundation for what encouraged several groups like women and abolitionists to push for their respective social reforms which provided the means to communicate their ideas with the rest of the nation during the antebellum period. The Temperance Movement led by women was emboldened by the idea of …show more content…

Factory jobs gave women the opportunity to make money for themselves and be less dependent on men. However, when more women and immigrants populated the cities, factory owners started to cut women’s wages. They were upset and began to organize and form unions to stage protests and strikes against factories. Although these early strikes were unsuccessful, they encouraged women to be more proactive and fight for their rights. Women such as Sojourner Truth and Elizabeth Cady Stanton realized that if they could work in factories and perform hard manual labor - without the assistance of their husbands or other men - they should be treated as their equals. Truth articulates in her “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech that she has ploughed and planted as much as a man. Women such as Truth should be perceived as equals to men if they can perform the same tasks as them in a labor dependent society. In the “Declaration of Sentiments”, Stanton proclaimed at the Women’s Rights Conventions in 1848 that women have been deprived of their right to be equal to men for far too long. These ideas spread rapidly in the United States due to the advanced printing presses and telegraphs produced. Even though women’s rights were not acquired until the 20th century, industry had been the ignition required for women to effectively begin advocating for their equality during the antebellum

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